As a growing number of Democratic leaders across the nation begin to feel the direct impact of President Joe Biden’s lax immigration enforcement, many of them are adopting rhetoric and embracing policies that echo the border-state Republicans who have been railing against the White House for nearly three years.
Most recently, buses filled with undocumented migrants have been diverted to several New Jersey cities to circumvent an executive action signed by New York City Mayor Eric Adams that limits when and where such drop-offs can occur in that city.
Upon arriving at train stations in Trenton, Secaucus, Fanwood, and Edison, many of the migrants were reportedly loaded onto other buses or trains to finish their trip to New York City.
Democratic Edison Mayor Sam Joshi, however, responded to the arrival of about 40 migrants in his town by transporting them back to the Mexico border.
Edison, NJ Mayor Sam Joshi on our show talking about the migrant crisis. He is ordering buses carrying illegal migrants to go back to the US-Mexico border. @fox5ny pic.twitter.com/pRkE0Jh7el
— Natasha Verma (@NatashaVermaTV) January 3, 2024
“The solution for me as the mayor of Edison is not to pawn it off to another mayor,” he said.
Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora, also a Democrat, confirmed that all but about 10 migrants who arrived in his city have since been transported to New York City, complaining that “we don’t have the capacity to take them in.”
Of course, when Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — who is behind the transfer of migrants from his overwhelmed state to other areas of the country — backed a measure last year to allow judges to send undocumented migrants back to Mexico, he was rebuked by Democrats like U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, also of Texas.
“When you look at somebody like Greg Abbott, my governor, and his solution, his solution is to basically say: ‘Hey, we’re going to kill people that are trying to come in,’” she claimed. “Like, that’s not a solution.”
For his part, Joshi also parroted a common complaint of Abbott and other GOP leaders who have been forced to deal with the impact of thousands of undocumented migrants illegally crossing into the U.S. each day under the Biden administration.
The mayor noted that there was no way to determine whether the few dozen migrants who arrived in his city were potentially dangerous.
“They couldn’t be identified, and that is a major problem,” Joshi said. “That’s a major security risk. It’s a health risk. And we’re just not going to tolerate that.”
