Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s press secretary, Rena Eze, confirms to ABC News that 50 immigrants landed at the Vice President’s Naval Observatory residence on Saturday after a long bus ride from Texas. Abbott said he sent two busloads of immigrants to Harris’ residence on Thursday. “We’re sending immigrants to her backyard to call on the Biden administration to do its job and secure the border,” he tweeted at the time. Abbott and other Republican leaders from border states have been sending migrants to Democratic-led cities for months, casting it as a protest against President Joe Biden’s immigration policies amid an influx of migrants at the southern border. Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSandis stepped up the program this week by dropping off about 100 migrants outside Harris’ home in Washington and Martha’s Vineyard, the island just south of Cape Cod where former President Barack Obama has a home. The moves drew national attention and anger from the White House and Democrats who said lawmakers were using immigrants as political pawns. Republicans cheered the move, arguing the Biden administration must do more to secure the border. A group of mostly Venezuelan immigrants who were bussed from a detention center in Texas and then dropped off outside the Naval Observatory, the official residence of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, wait to be transported to Washington, DC, September 17, 2022. Marat Sadana/Reuters Some Democratic lawmakers said they received no advance warning that the migrants were about to arrive. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said the state has since volunteered to move the migrants from Martha’s Vineyard to a temporary shelter at Joint Base Cape Cod. A Venezuelan immigrant, Victor, told ABC News’ Armando Garcia that he was there when someone asked the immigrants to sign their name on a list to get a seat on the plane. He didn’t sign up because the offer sounded too suspicious and because it didn’t line up with his plans to eventually get to New York. Victor said he feels for the people who were tricked into taking those flights, but he understands why they took that risk. “It’s complicated because they tell you you’re going to have everything you want, but when people arrived they basically disappeared,” he said. A group of mostly Venezuelan immigrants who were bussed from detention in Texas disembark outside the Naval Observatory, the official residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, in Washington, September 17, 2022. Marat Sadana/Reuters The White House said FEMA administrators met with city officials on the ground to coordinate available federal support, but largely avoided questions about how to improve the immigration system — saying they inherited a broken process from the Trump administration . President Joe Biden criticized the migrant departures as “just wrong”. “It’s un-American, it’s reckless, and we have a process to manage immigrants at the border,” he said at a gala for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “We’re working to make sure it’s safe, orderly and humane. Republican officials shouldn’t interfere with that process by pulling these political stunts.” DeSantis on Friday also said more migraine discharges are coming. “I have 12 million dollars to use and so we will use it and you will see more and more. I will make sure that we use all these funds,” he told a press conference. Editor’s note: An earlier version of the story said the busloads of immigrants were coming from El Paso. The governor’s office later clarified that the busloads of immigrants to the vice president’s residence were sent from Texas, but not from El Paso. ABC News’ Quinn Owen contributed to this report.
