After Five Months of Inaction Mayor Bowser Declares Emergency in Response to Migrant Buses, Mutual Aid Groups Respond

On Thursday, Mayor Bowser declared an emergency in response to migrants being bused to DC, which began five months prior. Since April, the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, migrants, and activists have demanded the DC government step up to ensure all migrants are received with dignity. We call on the city to continue to meet our demands, including providing permanent housing solutions and legal services for those who choose to stay in DC.

“The mayor's response is the result of months of organizing and activism by the DC community. While we are happy to see Bowser take an interest in supporting migrants being bused to DC, she is five months too late,” said Bianca Vazquez from Beloved Community Incubator. “By abdicating their responsibility for so long, the DC government helped create this humanitarian crisis.”

On April 13th, Governor Abbott began busing migrants from Texas to DC as part of a racist, publicity stunt aimed at President Biden. In May, Governor Ducey of Arizona joined in on this stunt as well. Since then DC residents have welcomed over 5,900 migrants from Texas and almost 2,000 from Arizona, many of whom are young children. The DC government, however, has been largely absent in responding to this growing humanitarian crisis, until today.

For the past five months, the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, a group of 20+ community orgs, religious groups, and hundreds of volunteers, have been showing up daily to welcome migrants with dignity — providing them with food, clothes, transportation, medical support, housing, etc. Local nonprofits, funded by FEMA, have also been responding to the buses. Since April, the Mutual Aid Network has been calling on the Bowser administration to step up and take action to support our new neighbors, but the calls have been ignored. 

“Mayor Bowser announced that she is setting up a system that is distinct from the homelessness services system to address migrant needs,” said Madhvi Bahl from Sanctuary DMV and the Mutual Aid Network. “We await the details of this plan and hope it includes transitional housing, case managers, and other resources that will allow migrants long-term stability. In the meantime we will continue to show up for our neighbors and welcome them with dignity.”

Until today, Mayor Bowser peddled the false narrative that people coming in on the Texas and Arizona buses are not staying in DC. In truth, 10-15% of the migrants choose to make the DMV area their home, therefore housing remains our biggest need at the moment. In addition, migrants who settle in this area need food, healthcare, and access to education. Needs that have until now been met by the community. 

“As long-time organizers in DC, we’ve watched every day as the government criminalizes our homeless population and our incarcerated comrades die in the DC jail. Because of this we should not trust the government on how they are going to respond to migrants coming to our city.” said Fariha from DC IWOC. “As organizers, we have come together to collectively address situations just like this one and will never turn our backs on our communities. We will continue to be on the ground every day to support our neighbors and to hold the DC government accountable.”

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