Migrant Advocate: Busing Them North 'Is a Service to the Migrants,' Most of Whom Want to Leave Texas

(CNSNews.com) – Most of the migrants bused to Washington, D.C., and dropped off on a cold Christmas Eve have “already reached their final destination,” says the director of a group that offers assistance to asylum seekers. And that destination is further north.

“We had about 60 percent of those migrants that were heading to New York City to either shelter there or to meet with friends and family, said Tatiana Laborde, the managing director with SAMU First Response. “This is a pattern we’ve been seeing over the past couple of months,” she told CNN on Monday morning.

Laborde said her group offered blankets and warm food to the three busloads of Christmas Eve migrants, taking them first to a D.C.-area shelter. And then — “understanding that Washington was not their final destination,” she said, SAMU was “ready to help them move forward,” to New York City.

CNN asked Laborde about the migrants being dropped off in front of the vice president’s official residence, something that’s happened many times before:

“At this point, they’ve been doing that for so many months that we have the system already down, and it’s just another spot that has very little impact. We have buses on site ready to just move them quickly and get them to a safe place,” Laborde said.

The CNN anchor tried again, asking about the “cruel decision being made with people’s lives.” 

“Well, there’s two ways to look at it, right?” Laborde said.

“The way they’re doing it is extremely inhumane, but it is a service to the migrants. A lot of them don’t want to stay in Texas. A large majority keep wanting to go up north so it gets them closer and it gets them away from places that have very little connectivity into metropolitan areas where taking a bus is much easier, or a train or a plane. 

“So if it’s done correctly, it could really help ease the tensions at the border.” 

Laborde noted that what border states such as Texas are experiencing “is much worse than what we see here. About three buses is just a small portion of what they experience on the day to day,” she said.

“If things like this are done in a coordinated and humane manner, it could really be a good option for those border towns that are struggling.”

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