Senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security want President Joe Biden to follow the lead of several Republican governors in relocating migrants, NBC News reported.
Internal documents and communications reviewed by NBC News show growing discord between the White House and DHS officials regarding the southern border as the number of migrants entering the U.S. keeps rising.
DHS officials have presented options to the White House during a recent series of high-level meetings on immigration, NBC News reported Friday.
The choices offered included flying migrants to the country's northern border with Canada to alleviate overcrowding on the U.S.-Mexico border, according to NBC News sources.
DHS officials even have suggested that the administration should start securing planes and planning for migrant relocation, NBC News said.
That option resembles the actions of several Republican governors – namely Texas' Greg Abbott and Arizona's Doug Ducey — who have bused migrants to blue cities as a way to protest Biden's reluctance to adequately police the southern border.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this week sent two planes filled with mostly Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard, off the Massachusetts coast.
Two busloads of migrants arrived outside Vice President Kamala Harris' residence early Thursday morning. The Washington Examiner reported that Abbott's administration had approved the drop-off.
Some DHS officials have expressed frustration with the White House's reluctance to copy the Republican governors. NBC News reported that the officials see the GOP shaping the conversation on immigration while White House officials prevent DHS from relocating migrants in a more organized manner.
One DHS proposal would send migrants to such cities as Los Angeles, where shelters would accommodate them.
Nearly 8,000 migrants are crossing the southern border daily, NBC News said.
"White House officials have previously set 9,000 per day as an internal trigger to begin what they refer to as 'interior processing,' where migrants are flown or bused from the border to interior cities where shelters can take care of them as they await reunification with family members and eventually their dates in immigration court," NBC News said.
Customs and Border Protection statistics show that an average of more than 220,000 migrants encounters have been reported at the U.S.-Mexico border the past five months.
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