Transporting immigrants latest dust up
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott have been feuding across the political spectrum and on social media for some time now. The latest controversy involves Abbott’s transport of undocumented immigrants to California via bus. Onlookers are now wondering when and where the next feud will be.
The feud between the governors has been documented for more than a decade. Words traded at government meetings have ignited a more serious controversy. The feud further escalated when Newsom criticized Abbott over his lack of concern over gun laws, abortion, and mental health. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade last year, Newsom went on record to let all of California and the United States know that his state would be a haven for women to get legal abortions performed by medical professionals in medical facilities.
Abbott said the complete opposite. Texas was one of the first states to ban abortions at all levels and even put into law that if any medical professional performed an abortion, they could be sentenced to jail, fined, or have their medical license taken away. Abbott was already facing heat from other politicians on state and federal levels for his lax gun laws and swiftly responded to the Newsom ad.
Newsom proceeded to take out ads in the Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle, and El Paso Times, and made this statement: “If Texas can ban abortion and endanger lives, California can ban deadly weapons of war and save lives. If Governor Abbott truly wants to protect the right to life, we urge him to follow California’s lead,” the ad read.
“We need to recognize a reality: What we’ve seen across the United States over the past year or two, and that is an increased number of shootings in both red states and blue states,” Abbott said on Fox News. “We’ve seen an increased number of shootings in states with easy gun laws, as well as states with strict gun laws. I think the state with the largest number of victims occurred this year in California, where they have very tough gun laws.”
Newsom replied to the statement in a tweet, pointing out that Texas’ gun death rate is 73 percent higher than California’s. Newsom also highlighted how Abbott claimed that mental health is the root cause of the increase in gun violence, but at the same time had slashed more than $211 million from the state mental health funding as he lambasted Abbott’s idea of restricting gun laws as a threat to American freedom.
Things have now escalated into possible human trafficking violations as Abbott has sent over 16 buses filled with immigrants to Los Angeles since June 14. “One bus with migrants on board from Texas arrived around 2 p.m. today at Union Station,” according to a statement from Zach Seidl, Los Angeles deputy mayor of communications. “This is the 16th bus that has arrived. The city has continued to work with city departments, the county, and a coalition of nonprofit organizations, in addition to our faith partners, to execute a plan set in place earlier this year.
“Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status,” Abbott said in a statement after the first bus arrived in Los Angeles. “Our border communities are on the front lines of President Biden’s border crisis, and Texas will continue providing this much-needed relief until he steps up to do his job and secure the border,” he added.
Mayor Karen Bass chimed in recently: “We hear about the buses headed our way when they’re on the way,l” Bass said. “We have no idea who’s going to be on the bus, how many people it is, or what condition they’re going to be in when they get here. Sometimes they haven’t had any food, barely had enough water.”
