Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials stated there are “no plans” to send illegal immigrants to northern states such as North Dakota and Montana, although Montana’s attorney general expressed concern that it might eventually happen.
“CBP continually evaluates possible contingency plans and adjusts its operations as circumstances dictate, but currently there are no plans to transfer migrants from the Southwest border to the Northern or Coastal borders,” CBP said in a statement last week, responding to a report from the Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, that claimed illegal immigrants would be sent to the two states.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said the move would “do nothing” to fix the situation, adding that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told him there is no plan to fly people to northern states.
“Putting illegal immigrants in North Dakota would endanger our communities and do nothing to fix the border crisis @POTUS caused but still won’t acknowledge,” he wrote last week. “@DHSgov told me over the weekend this won’t happen, and I plan to hold the administration to that.”
But Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said he’s still concerned about the prospect of that occurring.
“We got word, and this was a leaked email that came from inside of DHS and CBP. So we know somebody at the top is talking about this,” he told Fox News. “But it reached us. Obviously, the governor and I ... reached out. We sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, and you just read their response. But it’s that word ‘currently’ that really concerns us, and, you know, frankly, I think we could see this here in Montana.
“Where are we going to put these people? We don’t have camps. We don’t have large hotels, empty, just sitting around. We’re not able to handle an influx of several hundred or thousand people, just as a matter of logistics. I don’t know where we’re going to put these people and process them and make sure they’re not just released into the interior.
“Because that’s the real concern here.”
The surge in illegal immigrants crossing the southern border comes after the Biden administration moved to rescind several Trump-era executive orders. While Republicans have said that President Joe Biden is fully responsible for the crisis, Biden and other White House officials have said such surges in illegal immigration occur every year.
