Pious liberals pushing for lax US border controls are finally getting their comeuppance, says Douglas Murray in The Daily Telegraph. For years, Democrats in coastal cities have practically encouraged illegal immigrants to cross the Mexican border, safe in the knowledge that southern states like Texas and Arizona would have to deal with the influx. New York, Washington DC and others have even declared themselves “sanctuary cities”, where police do not help deport illegal immigrants. But now the southern states are calling their bluff. In recent months, Texas and Arizona have been bussing illegal immigrants to northern cities: around 5,000 to New York, for example, and 9,000 to DC.
Oh, how those liberal politicians “have screamed”. New York has had to put up the new arrivals in a hotel just off Times Square, prompting fierce local backlash. Washington’s Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser, has asked for help from the National Guard. “We are not a border city,” she said. “Our infrastructure is set to focus on DC residents.” Well, quite. Does she not think the mayors of southern cities feel the same? Hats off to the Republican state governors for this “brilliant” wheeze. I rather hope politicians on the south coast of England do something similar. Instead of illegal immigrants “milling about” towns like Dover, why not bus them off to Islington? As in the US, let those who don’t believe in borders “bear the consequences of their own beliefs”.