GOP governors continue sending migrants, including babies, to Democratic states

Republican governors this week continued ramping up the controversial practice of sending migrants to Democratic states in a move critics are calling a political stunt. Arriving by bus and plane in Sacramento, California, dozens of migrant families, including children, were dropped off without any direction or assistance.

Aid workers said some migrants who walked from a Sacramento airport looking for shelter ended up sleeping in a park. 

“Using people as political pawns to make a political point is wrong, and this is really an immoral thing for whoever is doing it to be doing,” Autumn Gonzalez, a volunteer with the nonprofit group NorCal Resist, told CBS News.

New York City’s shelters are also at the breaking point. Mayor Eric Adams said the city has opened 23 emergency shelters, and is even considering using cruise ships as housing.

“We’re looking at that as a temporary measure, not as a permanent measure,” Adams said. “A permanent measure is get people into housing.”

Republican governors of border states said they will not stop sending migrants to Democratic cities in an effort to provoke President Biden to act on border security.  

“We want to make sure that taxpayers are not having to foot tens of thousands, or thousands of people, coming in illegally,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. “And that’s the most effective way to do it.”

Saturday morning, a bus from Texas dropped off migrants in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Vice President Kamala Harris.

“About 50 migrants, a lot of children,” said Tatiana Laborde, managing director for the nonprofit organization SAMU First Response. “And there’s about a one-month-old baby on the bus.”

Asylum-seekers flown in earlier this week to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, received hugs and gifts from residents, before they were transported to a military base in Cape Cod.