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Approximately 110-130 of the migrants seeking asylum in the
United States, many of them families with children, were placed
on buses by Texas officials, said Tatiana Laborde, managing
director of SAMU First Response, a relief agency working with
the city of Washington, D.C.
She said by phone that aid groups had been informed of their
journey and awaited their arrival late on Saturday to hand out
blankets and then transport them to a church in the city's
Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Aides to Texas Governor Greg Abbott were not available to
comment on whether the state coordinated their transportation.
The Republican governor, a vocal critic of the Biden
administration's immigration policies, and some other Republican
governors have been transporting migrants to
Democratic-controlled cities in the northern United States.
Texas has bused thousands of migrants to Washington, New York
City and Chicago, in what some critics have labeled a stunt amid
a national debate over the high levels of immigrant arrivals
along the U.S. southern border.
Laborde said that in the past week, nine busloads of migrants
have been dropped off in Washington.
"Lately, what we've been seeing is an increase in people from
Ecuador and Colombia," Laborde said. Previously, many
Venezuelans had been arriving by bus, she added.
Many of the most recent arrivals, Laborde said, are now
attempting to go to New York or New Jersey where they have
relatives or other community support.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Howard Goller)
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