Comment The Ministry of Defense on Monday again said it would not help the District deal with the thousands of immigrants who have arrived by bus from Texas and Arizona, upholding the department’s earlier refusal of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s earlier request to deploy the National Guard. In a letter to Bowser (D), Pentagon Executive Secretary Kelly Bulliner Holly outlined a number of reasons National Guard troops cannot be deployed, including the fact that its members they are not trained to provide the kind of services that would be required to help migrants, including feeding, sanitation and managing a central processing facility. More than 7,000 immigrants from countries such as Venezuela or Nicaragua have arrived Union Station on buses since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) began offering the free rides in April to highlight what he called the Biden administration’s lax border enforcement policies. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) followed suit in May. Aid for incoming migrants strained amid dispute over who should help them With some of those immigrants sleeping outside Union Station and in hotel parking lots, Bowser called the situation an escalating humanitarian crisis, accusing Republican governors of giving political fodder to immigrants who, in most cases, have escaped death threats or other risks. countries and seek asylum. In a series of tweets Monday night, Bowser said the city will continue to plan to ensure there is a “humane environment” for immigrants “passing through D.C. on their way to their final destination.” He also pledged to “continue to work with federal partners and local NGOs on how best to build systems that allow us to manage an ongoing humanitarian crisis.” We will move forward with our programming to ensure that when people pass through DC on their way to their final destination, we have a humane environment for them. — Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) August 22, 2022 In July, Bowser called for 150 National Guard soldiers to be deployed to help pick up the buses and to set up a temporary processing center at the DC Armory, Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling or Fort Lesley J. McNair — all of of which are a short drive from Union Station. In her letter, Bulliner Holly said the Pentagon is also denying a request to use one of those facilities, but cited only problems at the Armory in its reasoning. That facility, Bulliner Holly said, does not have air conditioning and would have to undergo a series of repairs to address other issues before it would be suitable for overnight stays — a costly and timely undertaking, the letter said. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said Monday that the agency is in regular contact with both Bowser and New York Mayor Eric Adams (D), whose city has also received buses from Texas and Arizona, about coordinate available federal assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies; Federal funding is also available to nonprofits working on the issue, the spokesman said. Responsibility for helping the migrants has fallen to local aid groups, some of which have opposed Bowser’s call for a National Guard deployment, calling such a move an unnecessary militarization of a humanitarian crisis. SAMU First Response, an organization originally founded to help unaccompanied minors, operates a temporary shelter in Montgomery County for 50 immigrants at a time under a $1 million FEMA grant. This organization is looking for a larger space closer to Union Station that could temporarily accommodate more people. Other aid groups, most of them volunteer-based, have met the buses as they arrived and taken the migrants to this facility or to hotels and other temporary shelters inside churches or nonprofits. Michael Brice-Saddler contributed to this report.
