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Dear John,
It’s a matter of human decency not to deliberately put people in harm’s way.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been placing migrant people on buses or planes and exiling them from Texas into inclement weather in “blue states” without adequate clothing or protection from the freezing cold or storms.
He has not arranged or coordinated these excursions with any governmental or charitable organizations. And this is not just a one-time deal. He has done this multiple times, bragging about it as a political talking point and vowing to continue to do it.
Mimicking the reprehensible actions of another “red state” governor, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Abbott has sent over a thousand asylum seekers to Washington D.C., Chicago, Denver, Sacramento, New York, and more. Abbott timed his expulsion of one group of migrants to Los Angeles to coincide with Tropical Storm Hilary.
That’s not even the worst of it.
Under his direction, earlier this month the Texas Military Department did not allow U.S. Border Patrol agents access to a section of the Rio Grande to save a woman and her two young children from drowning as they tried to reach Eagle Pass. The young family died when the agents were not allowed entry.
Bragging about Texas’ mistreatment of asylum seekers, Abbott said recently, “The only thing that we are not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border -- because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.”
This is an abuse of human rights, which Governor Abbott has vowed to continue. Demand the Department of Justice investigate this repeated and ongoing inhumane treatment of human beings now.
On Christmas Eve, he sent over a hundred migrants to the home of Vice President Kamala Harris in the record-breaking Washington D.C. cold, some also without jackets. Surprised relief agencies had to hustle to provide blankets.
He sent hundreds of migrants, including children, by bus to freezing, snow-bound Chicago on New Year’s Eve, many without jackets, some with only flip-flops for shoes.
In Chicago, a mother on the flight with three children said they were “deserted” upon landing.
"The people who brought us were the first to get off the plane and we never saw them again," Ana Maria Giordano told ABC News in Spanish. "We kept asking what was happening but the people at the airport didn't know. They just asked us to remain calm and told us to stay inside the terminal so we wouldn't be cold."
Asylum is a legal and human right, founded on the right to human dignity.
Most of the people Governor Abbott is using as political pawns are in the United States legally. He is sending vulnerable people into traumatic situations for political points -- or worse, putting their lives at further risk when they attempt to cross the border looking to America for sanctuary.
The DOJ must investigate these human rights abuses to ensure they do not continue, and to hold the Abbott administration accountable. It’s not just to uphold the rule of law; it’s to uphold American values of human decency.
Thank you for speaking up for the humane treatment of human beings.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
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