The Cost of a Free Ride : A First Look at the Migrants Bused from Texas and Arizona into Washington, DC

Former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and current Texas Governor Greg Abbott have been paying for the busing of recent arrivals into the U.S. to DC. One of the reasons given to do this was because of the perceived threat that came with Biden potentially lifting pandemic-era emergency Title 42, which barred many migrants and asylum seekers from the Western Hemisphere entry to the United States. Arizona and Texas claim to have a migrant problem and see sending recent migrants without a place to stay to DC as a solution that partially decreases the number of migrants in the state and symbolically puts the problem directly on the doorstep of the federal government. Through a partnership with SAMU, one of the main organizations welcoming them to DC, we got anonymous access to the demographics of the people coming in the buses, migrants’ nationalities, age, gender, and desired destination. What was found was that the majority of migrants on buses were mostly from South America, specifically: Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. The buses from Arizona and Texas had different makeup of nationalities in them. Most of the migrants wanted to leave Texas, which may be due to family and friendship ties as well as job opportunities elsewhere