CHICAGO (CBS) — Five days ahead of the start of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, city leaders signaled they are ready for anything thrown at them.
But one big question looms—will Texas Gov. Greg Abbott flood the city with buses of migrants?
Abbott has been shipping migrants to Chicago for two years. For almost as long, there has been an expectation he would use Chicago’s week in the spotlight for the DNC to double down.
While the flow of migrants to Chicago has largely stopped since Christmas, Abbott signaled just Wednesday that he is not done.
At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month, Abbott said, “Those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border.”
Abbott posted a similar sentiment to X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday, reading, “We won’t stop until the Biden-Harris Administration secures the border.”
But the buses from Texas have slowed, and those studying the crisis say there are three reasons a full court press next week during the DNC is unlikely.
“There the facts have changed,” said Muzaffar Chishti of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “December 2023 was the high-water mark of arrivals at the U.S. southern border—about 300,000.”
That 300,000 figure has now dropped to a three-year low of just over 83,000 in June.
“There’s less opportunity to find enough people to be bused to Chicago, so that’s a big change,” Chishti said.
Chishti said number one, Abbott may not have enough people in Texas to send, and number two, word has filtered to those making the trek that sanctuary cities have cracked down on how long people can stay in shelters.
“That message, I think, has filtered down. Social media is very important in this kind of story,” said Chishti. “The fact that news travels fast in the right migrant community also made people not be willing to come to Chicago as easily were last year or the year before.”
Chishti said number three, the decline in numbers at the border weakens the Republican argument against the Biden administration—as does the refusal by Republicans to agree to the bipartisan border protection bill.
“I think the Republican argument on this has been blunted quite a bit,” he said.
So as the home stretch arrives for the DNC in Chicago, what will Abbott do? Does Chishti expect buses of migrants to be coming to Chicago next week despite all those changes in the political climate?
“I think the governor of Texas will make attempts to see whether he could create a spectacle,” Chishti said. “Whether he can be successful in sending a large number of people in buses in a very high-profile way is doubtful.”
Despite all the forces working against the effort, if Abbott does mobilize, the timing would require action in the next two days to get the buses to Chicago—if there is to be a political impact on convention week.
Meanwhile, the next question is for Democrats is how they will frame the border—because while the numbers are improving, according to Gallup polls, the border remains a top-three issue for voters.
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