D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) said Thursday that she has asked for the National Guard to be deployed to help handle the influx of illegal immigrants coming into the nation’s capital.
Bowser described the situation as a “growing humanitarian crisis” of “people who are seeking asylum coming across the country to get to their final destinations,” saying that Washington, D.C. would “continue to pursue federal involvement.”
“We’ve had a number of discussions,” she said. “We’ve facilitated FEMA’s involvement with a million dollar grant that has now been increased to work with a lead nonprofit agency. We’ve facilitated using those grant funds to set up respite center in a neighboring jurisdiction and I’ve also asked the Secretary of the Army to deploy the D.C. National Guard to help lead that effort.”
The mayor also said that officials need “space” to house the migrants.
“I’ve asked for the deployment of the guard as long as we need the guard to deal with the humanitarian crisis that we expect to escalate,” she continued. “The number of people crossing the border seeking asylum, we expect to only go up, we need to make sure that there is a national response, not an ad hoc city by city, state by state response.”
WATCH:
DC @MayorBowser calls for activating the National Guard to handle the influx of illegal migrants into the city, calling it a "humanitarian crisis."
This is something she refused to do on January 6 but will do when 4,000 illegal migrants enter her city. pic.twitter.com/R3kUM5JUXs
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 28, 2022
Bowser had sent letters to President Joe Biden’s administration and the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency asking that the National Guard be indefinitely activated and for permission to use the D.C. Armory as a processing center.
She has not received an answer to either of these letters, NBC reported.
Over the past three months, more than 150 buses have reportedly transported over 4,000 migrants to D.C. from Arizona and Texas.
9 days since @MayorBowser requested @SecDef @ @POTUS activate @DCNationalGuard DC has received no answer. @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/Ndwvh7MoMh
— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) July 28, 2022
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Wire.