Homeland Secretary Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas blamed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday for the scores of migrants pouring into blue cities and states across the country — without any examination of the Biden administration’s own policies.
“Let me identify one fundamental problem here, and that is the fact that we have one governor in the state of Texas who is refusing to cooperate with other governors and other local officials,” Mayorkas said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in response to grumbling from Democratic mayors — including New York’s Eric Adams — over a lack of federal help to deal with the new arrivals.
“It’s a remarkable failure of governance to refuse to cooperate with one’s fellow local and state officials.”
At least 95,000 migrants have been flown or bused out of Texas to so-called “sanctuary cities” such as New York, Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles— over the objections of officials in those destinations — since Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021, according to the governor’s office.
Alejandro Mayorkas faulted the Texas governor for his gambit of busing migrants to blue cities across the country. MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFE/ShutterstockMeanwhile, the Lone Star State is in a court fight with the White House over the laying of razor wire near the border to deter illegal migration — a barrier which the Biden administration has said it wants to cut up.
In response to Mayorkas, Abbott harped on the secretary’s suggestion that “climate change, poverty, increasing level of authoritarianism” were the root causes of the surge at the border.
“Climate change? Mayorkas is pathetic,” Abbott wrote on X. “The REAL reason illegal immigration records are being set is because Biden refuses to enforce immigration laws.
“We will send more buses and planes,” the governor went on. “We will continue building the razor wire walls that Biden wants to tear down.”
Abbott’s fellow Republicans also jumped to the governor’s defense.
“Governor Abbott has no choice but to transport migrants elsewhere because Texas communities cannot continue to be saddled with the costs of the Biden Border Crisis alone,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told The Post.
“As Mayorkas and Biden continue to facilitate the invasion of our border, @GovAbbott works to enforce our laws and deny illegal entry. Mayorkas lashes out at Abbott for daring to do his job. Mayorkas is taking Americans for fools,” Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) posted on X, adding: “Impeachment is coming.”
Mayorkas also insisted that the DHS has taken steps to confront “the challenges that cities across the country are facing.”
On Dec. 27, Adams issued an executive order requiring charter bus companies carrying migrants to alert the city Emergency Management Office at least 32 hours before arriving in the Big Apple.
The order also limits drop-off hours to between 8:30 a.m. and noon daily at a single location, on West 41st Street between Eight and Ninth avenues in Manhattan.
Greg Abbott has bused migrants to blue cities as a means of alleviating the problem at home and keeps poking Democrats for the migrant crisis. Getty Images“We cannot allow buses with people needing our help to arrive without warning any hour of the day and night,” Adams said at the time. “This not only prevents us from providing assistance and orderly way, it puts those who have already suffered so much in danger.”
On Tuesday, Adams floated expanding the bus order to apply to planes and trains carrying migrants as well.
“We’re dealing with a person who just wants to disrupt,” Adams said of Abbott, adding that his order was “to send the right message to bus operators — ‘You should not participate in the actions of Governor Abbott.'”
New York City has taken in over 161,000 migrants over the past 18 months, according to city officials, an influx which has strained the Big Apple’s finances.
US Customs and Border Protection officers take an immigrant child from her mother after they crossed the border from Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas. AFP via Getty ImagesDuring fiscal year 2023, which ended Sept. 30, more than 2.47 million encounters with migrants were reported along the US-Mexico border, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection.
That number does not include an estimated 670,000 “gotaways” who eluded authorities.
There were nearly 2.4 million arrests in fiscal 2022, following a then-record-breaking 1.7 million stops in fiscal 2021.
Further complicating the problem is the fact that many migrants come to the border and claim asylum before getting released into the US to wait for a court date to hear their case.
The backlog to adjudicate asylum cases blew past 3 million in November, per Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Mayorkas is facing impeachment murmurs from House Republicans. REUTERS“That backlog is a powerful example of how broken our immigration system is,” Mayorkas argued Wednesday.
Biden has been blamed for encouraging the wave of migration through a number of executive actions as president.
Notably, the 81-year-old halted construction of former President Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall on his first day as president, and in June 2021 terminated the “Remain in Mexico” policy that required most asylum seekers to wait south of the border while their case is heard.






