photo by Lorie Shaull
“Dear PoPville,
For almost three months, Governor Abbott has been busing migrants from Texas to DC. Buses arrive 6 days a week from the early hours of the morning to late at night. For 11 weeks the DMV community has been welcoming migrants arriving on buses, with NO help from the DC government. The community has received over 90 buses, carrying close to 3,000 people and spent around $200k of grassroots raised money doing so. This involves welcoming buses, purchasing travel tickets, arranging transportation and accompaniment to bus terminals and airports, responding to medical and other basic needs, and providing shelter for an increased flow of buses from Texas.
What the community has been doing was never supposed to be a long term solution. Organizers – like myself – are physically and mentally exhausted from doing the government’s job for it. People are burned out and getting sick. Without our labor, asylum seekers would be left out on the streets. It is unacceptable that the DC government has relied on volunteers and residents’ labor and donations for almost three months to support folks arriving on buses.
The DMV community’s desire to support our new neighbors has been exploited by the DC government for far too long as a way to ignore a growing humanitarian crisis in this city. We claim that this is a Sanctuary city but government provides no sanctuary to those who are seeking it. This lack of support for migrants echoes and is deeply intertwined with the forced displacement of and lack of support for longtime DC residents and our unhoused neighbors.
The DC government has a choice–either stand by the DC community and asylum seekers, or be complicit in Governor Abbott’s racist, xenophobic stunt. It is time for DC government to step up and meet our demands for the dignified treatment of migrants being bused to our city: bit.ly/migrantsupportdemands. Will you support our new neighbors by providing them with respite space, food, transport, and temporary housing upon arrival? Volunteer and Donate here.”