Obama’s plan is working, unfortunately, and Republicans probably want to go right along with it:
Migrants are released from ICE custody at a Greyhound Bus station in Phoenix May 28, 2014. The Border Patrol says about 400 migrants were flown from Texas to Arizona because of surge in migrants being apprehended in Texas. This group was from Texas and Georgia.(Photo: Michael Chow/The Republic)
ARIZONA CENTRAL – Scores of undocumented immigrants from Central America have been released at Greyhound Lines Inc. bus stations in Tucson and Phoenix over the past several days after they were flown to Arizona from south Texas, officials acknowledged.
Andy Adame, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Tucson, confirmed that over the weekend federal officials flew about 400 migrants apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas to Tucson to be processed. He said the migrants were flown to Arizona because the Border Patrol does not have enough manpower to handle a surge in illegal immigrants in south Texas.
The release has drawn criticism from those on both sides of the immigration issue.
Border enforcement groups are concerned that the migrants will now disappear into the U.S., spurring even more to come illegally.
“This is a huge concern,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for more immigration and border enforcement.
“This is exactly the incentive for people to cross the border illegally,” he said.
Humanitarian groups are concerned that immigration officials are dropping migrants off at bus stations to fend for themselves without food, water and basic necessities.
“It’s not safe healthwise and we are concerned for their physical safety,” said Cyndi Whitmore, a volunteer with the Phoenix Restoration Project, an advocacy group that has been going to the bus terminal in Phoenix to help.
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