The District has started a grant program for aid organizations that are assisting the illegal immigrants being bussed to the city from Texas and Arizona.
D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine announced the grants, promising up to $150,000 in financial support for organizations that complete the application by the end of the day Tuesday.
The grant money also needs to be spent before the District’s fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began busing migrants to D.C. in April and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey began doing it in May. The governors, both Republicans, launched the program to protest the Biden administration’s lax border policies that have inundated their states with illegal immigrants.
Organizations that are eligible for the D.C. grants must be nonprofit, community-based organizations with a 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) tax status. Those organizations will need to outline the services and resources the grants will go toward, estimate how many migrants they will serve and meet other requirements.
“The decision by the Governors of Texas and Arizona to bus asylum-seeking migrants to the District is causing a humanitarian crisis,” AG Racine said in the release. “The organizations and individuals who have shouldered the burden of providing basic needs and services — including housing, food, transportation, and legal assistance — are understandably strained and simply cannot be expected to carry this responsibility alone.”
Last month, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser sent letters to the Department of Defense and the White House asking for help accommodating some 4,000 migrants that were transported to the nation’s capital.
In the letters, Ms. Bowser said the city had reached a “tipping point” in helping situate the migrants.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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