Busing Migrants: The Latest Strategy in the Long History of U.S. Migration Policy
Veronica Montes, 03.21.2023
Topics: Immigration
On April 13, 2022, at the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott, two dozen migrants were loaded on a bus in Texas and sent to Washington, D.C. Busing migrants out of southern border cities and leaving them in Democratic-led cities elsewhere in the country is a tactic that is being carried out as part of Abbott’s immigration-enforcement initiative Operation Lone Star.
Like various initiatives in the past (such as Operation Hold the Line in 1993, Operation Gatekeeper in 1994, and Operation Safeguard in 1995) the aim of Operation Lone Star is to halt unauthorized migration. However, rather than focusing only on deterring migrants from entering the United States, Abbott (like other Republican governors of border states) is seeking to give Democratic leaders in other cities a taste of the challenges brought at the southern US border by the arrival of thousands of migrants and asylum. The approach of the 2024 election prompts the question of whether Abbott and others will continue to use the busing strategy, and, more precisely, whether they will continue using immigrants as political hostages. It also raises the question of what voters think of this strategy.
Though the busing strategy might be new, it is just the latest episode in a long history of conflicts over migration in this country. Over the past decade, as the political environment has become increasingly polarized, debates and controversies over immigration have often occupied center stage. In this atmosphere, the discourse about immigration has often become incendiary and xenophobic, largely as a result of politicians seeking political gains and the mainstream media’s depiction of immigrants. For instance, in the summer of 2014, the arrival of thousands of people, including many unaccompanied minors, at the U.S.-Mexico border made headlines across the United States. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported the apprehension of 68,541 unaccompanied minors during that fiscal year — a number that had been steadily rising since 2011. About 75% of those children came from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Further, family unit apprehensions along the southwest border also skyrocketed around the same time, from 14,855 in FY2013 to 68,445 in FY2014.
https://www.prri.org/spotlight/busing-migrants-the-latest-strategy-in-the-long-history-of-u-s-migration-policy/
