Migrants get dragged into partisan rows

Bused from border, they have become reluctant players in US election ploys

EAGLE PASS/HOUSTON — Buses carrying migrants from Republican-led border states continue to arrive in liberal bastions like New York, Washington, and Chicago, dragging the migrant crisis into the eye of the storm of partisan battles ahead of US midterm congressional elections next month.

For the fiscal year that ended on Sept 30, Eagle Pass, a border town in the southern state of Texas, was one of the busiest crossing points along the Rio Grande river that separates the United States and Mexico.

According to data from the US Customs and Border Protection, more than 2.1 million migrants crossed the border in the first 11 months of fiscal 2022, a record high in US history.

Unlike in the past, the current influx has been driven primarily by migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, the data shows. US relations with all three countries are deeply strained, contributing to economic misery there while making it difficult to send the migrants home.

Luis, a 23-year-old Venezuelan migrant who did not give his full name, said that it took him seven months to risk his life trekking the entire distance from his hometown to the US-Mexico border.

"The crossing of the Darien Gap was especially dangerous. It took me six days to complete. I was so hungry the entire time. Along the way, I saw dead bodies. Some drowned, others collapsed," Luis said outside a migrant resource center in San Antonio, which is about two and a half hours away by car from Eagle Pass.

The Darien Gap is the only overland route connecting Central and South America, stretching almost 100 kilometers through forest and swamp. It is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world.

Deaths mounting

However, this does not mean that migrants are safe once they cross the border into the US. Late last month, a detention center warden and his twin brother opened fire on a group of migrants who had stopped for water along a farm road near the Mexican border in Texas, killing one and injuring another.

More than 800 migrants died at the border in the 2022 fiscal year, hitting a record high, NPR reported recently, citing internal government figures shared by a senior Border Patrol official. Many of them died as a result of the extreme heat or drowned. In an interview with CNN, Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber said he finds bodies of migrants almost every day during his work in Texas.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, whose reelection campaign this year is focused on border security, launched the "busing strategy" in April to protest US President Joe Biden's border policies.

Abbott has accused the Biden administration of "ignoring and denying the historic crisis at our southern border, which has endangered and overwhelmed Texas communities for almost two years". Arizona, another border state dominated by Republicans, later joined Texas in migrant busing.

Republicans are "playing politics with human beings, using them as props", Biden said, slamming Abbott and other Republican governors over the relocation of migrants last month.

Thousands of migrants have been bused from the southern border to New York, Washington, and Chicago since April, leaving these Democratic cities scrambling to find adequate shelters for them.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency on Friday in response to the unprecedented influx of asylum-seekers, following in the footsteps of Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, who declared a public emergency and requested the National Guard to assist with the arrival of migrants this summer.

"This is unsustainable. The city is going to run out of funding for other priorities," Adams said, blaming political motivation.

"What's happening is very disturbing to a lot of people," Juanita Martinez, Democratic Party chairwoman of Maverick County, said in Eagle Pass on Monday.