Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s recent call for New York Mayor Eric Adams and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser to visit the nation’s southern border has been either rejected or ignored, but the city leaders are nonetheless breaking rank with the Biden administration on immigration.

On Monday, Abbott released an open letter he wrote to Adams and Bowser asking them to come view “the humanitarian crisis firsthand.” The letter reads:

As law enforcement agents along the Texas-Mexico border respond to thousands of illegal crossings each and every day, putting their lives on the line for Texans and for all Americans, the crisis demands the attention of not only the Biden Administration, which is responsible for securing the border, but of leaders across the country. As Governor, I invite you to visit our border region to see firsthand the dire situation that only grows more urgent with each passing day, and to meet with the local officials, who like yourselves, realize this matter deserves immediate federal action.

While Bowser seems to have ignored the request, Adams rejected the invitation outright.

“Instead of a photo-op at the border, we hope Governor Abbott will focus his energy and resources on providing support and resources to asylum seekers in Texas as we have been hard at work doing in New York City,” a spokesman for Adams said in a statement originally shared by Fox. “We continue to work with federal partners to receive additional financial resources immediately, but will never turn our backs on those in need who are arriving here.”

Abbott has made headlines by bussing thousands of immigrants to Washington, D.C.

Adams might not be booking a trip for the Lone Star state, and he’s no fan of Abbott, but neither Adams nor Bowser has disagreed with Abbott’s characterization of the influx of migrants.

On Monday, Adams announced an emergency procurement declaration, a measure he hopes will more quickly acquire shelter and services for migrants who arrive in New York.

“New York is a city of immigrants, and we will always welcome newcomers with open arms. Over the past two months, we have seen a significant increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving in our city’s shelter system,” said Mayor Adams. “To fulfill our city’s legal and moral mandate to provide quality shelter to anyone experiencing homelessness, and to ensure we are providing appropriate services to asylum seekers, we are immediately issuing an emergency procurement declaration to rapidly procure additional shelter and services to serve these individuals and families.”

Bowser has been even more forceful, asking President Joe Biden to use the National Guard to help her city process the thousands of migrants now in Washington. She also sent a letter to the White House in July stating that processing migrants must be a federal issue.

Wednesday, Reuters reported that Bowser’s call has angered the Biden administration.

The Biden administration continues to blame Abbott and fellow Republican Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona for bussing some 7,000 migrants to D.C., an act the White House calls shameful. However, Democrats using words like “emergency” and calling for military intervention have also been ill-received by the administration.

Adams and Bowser have unintentionally given Abbott the ammunition he needs to launch political attacks on Biden.

“We agree that this crisis demands immediate federal action to prevent the flood of deadly fentanyl, now the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45, the unimaginable horrors caused by human smuggling and trafficking, the known terrorists from entering our country, and the countless other crimes that have been committed by the hundreds of thousands of ‘gotaways’ that the Biden Administration has let slip through,” Abbott wrote.