White House condemns ‘stunt’ of busing migrants in freezing Christmas Eve weather

The White House on Sunday said a politically motivated “stunt” led to migrants being bused in subfreezing temperatures to Washington, D.C., the night before.

Three buses arrived Saturday outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence at the Naval Observatory, ABC affiliate WJLA reported.

Temperatures in Washington on Saturday night were in the teens, according to the National Weather Service.

It wasn’t clear who had transported the migrants. But Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, both Republicans, have for months been periodically sending migrants to Democratic-led areas of the country in protest of federal immigration policies, they have said.

Tatiana Laborde, managing director of the nonprofit SAMU First Response, which assists migrants making asylum claims in the U.S., told The Associated Press that her group brought the migrants to a local church and provided them meals. Laborde estimated that the buses carried approximately 120 migrants, including children.

The Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network also worked with the migrants as they arrived Saturday, according to WJLA.

Buses full of asylum seekers from Texas were dropped off at the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, Dec. 24, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

WJLA

Abbott previously bused 50 migrants to Harris’ home in September.

“We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border,” he tweeted at the time.

He told ABC News’ “Nightline” in August that “we’ve got to secure our border because the Biden administration is not securing it. And then the reason why we began putting people on buses in the first place is because the Biden administration, they were literally dumping migrants off in small little towns of 10 or 25,000 people, and they were completely overwhelmed.”

Abbott’s office said in August that more than 6,500 migrants had been taken by bus to cities like New York and Washington.

Buses full of asylum seekers from Texas were dropped off at the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, Dec. 24, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

WJLA

A spokesperson for the Texas Division of Emergency Management told ABC News in September that the state had spent more than $12 million on transporting the migrants, including charter buses and private security.

President Joe Biden has called such tactics “un-American,” “reckless” and “simply wrong.”

“This was a cruel, dangerous, and shameful stunt,” White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan said in a statement on Sunday.

“As we have repeatedly said, we are willing to work with anyone — Republican or Democrat alike — on real solutions, like the comprehensive immigration reform and border security measures President Biden sent to Congress on his first day in office, but these political games accomplish nothing and only put lives in danger,” Hasan said.

Abbott’s and Ducey’s offices as well as the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network and SAMU First Response did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.

ABC News’ Mariam Khan contributed to this report.