Mayorkas: ‘Sad and tragic day’ to use migrants as pawns as Title 42 winds down

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) migrant busing program Thursday, as a new bus arrived outside of Vice President Harris’s residence ahead of Title 42’s expiration.

“It is a both sad and tragic day when a government official uses migrants as a pawn for political purposes,” Mayorkas said at a White House press briefing.

The bus dropped off more than 30 migrants at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., Thursday morning; the migrants were received by the nonprofit SAMU First Response and Mutual Aid, according to NBC 4 Washington.

The migrants’ arrival comes as Abbott appears to be ramping up efforts once again to bus migrants from the southern border to Democrat-led cities in the north.

Abbott tweeted Wednesday that Texas has bused more than 17,000 migrants to the “sanctuary cities,” more than 9,200 of which went to Washington. Busloads of migrants were previously dropped outside Harris’s residence on Christmas Eve.

The country is bracing for an influx of migrants as Title 42, a COVID-era policy that has allowed for the rapid expulsion of asylum seekers, is set to expire Thursday at midnight.