Escobar says Abbott's plan to get asylum-seekers out of Texas is more 'politics of hate and cruelty'
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Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar is slamming right-wing Gov. Greg Abbott’s recent announcement seeking to bus asylum-seekers to Washington, D.C., as his usual, but no less disgusting, political theatrics. She ties this latest plan to another border scheme that has treated both migrants and deployed soldiers with disregard.
“If a person is a soldier or a migrant, he doesn’t care,” Escobar tells Border Report. She represents the El Paso region. “For him, they represent an opportunity to advance his politics of hate and cruelty. He’s not focused on solutions or on working with Congress to really help Texans; he’s focused on winning (re-election) at any cost.”
RELATED STORY: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott peddles horrific plan to kidnap immigrants, then backtracks
As noted last week, while Abbott puffed up his chest for cameras and threatened that he would kidnap forcibly move asylum-seekers across state lines as retribution for the Biden administration’s just decision to stop enforcing Stephen Miller’s anti-asylum policy at the southern border, Abbott was notably sedate in the official statement, which said the busing would actually be voluntary.
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“I don’t know if he’s really going to do what he says—I don’t think so,” Escobar commented to Border Report. “But if he wants to go through with this treatment of vulnerable people, I think someone will take him to court.”
But what she knows for sure is that Miller’s Title 42 order has been an abject failure, quadrupling crossings, experts have said. “We have 1,900 miles of wall. That has not stopped, curbed, or deterred migration,” Escobar continued to Border Report. “We’ve now had almost three years of Title 42. That has not stopped curbed or deterred migration.”
Escobar had vocally urged an end to the policy, and called for the administration to “re-envision our immigration policies to be more strategic and humane,” including creating a pilot program “for processing vulnerable populations using civilian personnel instead of law enforcement.” Border state advocates have also said they’re ready to welcome asylum-seekers.
“Our community in Arizona is welcoming to refugees and asylum seekers; it has been for many years,” said Their Story is Our Story Assistant Director of Advocacy Christy Bishop.
“Finally, Congress has an obligation to act on reforming outdated immigration laws,” Escobar said last month. “Calls for vulnerable populations to ‘get in line’ or ‘do it the right way’ reflect an ignorance about the limited legal opportunities that exist. It falls on those of us in Congress to create those legal opportunities that would go a long way in addressing the challenges and opportunities we face at our nation’s front door and beyond.”
In the aftermath of the horrific mass shooting by a white supremacist terrorist in El Paso in 2019, Escobar has relentlessly used her platform to call attention to the dangers of racist rhetoric commonly used by Abbott and other right-wing politicians.
Escobar late that year chaired a field hearing on anti-immigrant rhetoric and domestic violence that was skipped by Republicans. “Unnamed Republican representatives had planned to attend, Escobar said, but ‘backed out at the last minute’ for unknown reasons,” the El Paso Times reported. Probably because the anti-immigrant rhetoric of so many in their party is no different than racist mass murderers. Several years later, they’re just getting worse, just openly threatening to kidnap people.
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