Gov. Greg Abbott has increasingly played to the far-right base as he tries to stave off challenges in the Republican primary. Credit: Instagram / governorabbott

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts to bus asylum seekers out of the state haven’t just rankled civil libertarians, they’ve also offended a higher power, according to San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller.

In a tweet on Sunday, San Antonio’s archbishop said the Republican governor’s program, which has so far deposited more than 8,000 migrants in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., “offends God.”

“To use migrants and refugees as pawns offends God, destroys society and shows how low individuals can be for personal gains,” García-Siller tweeted. “These tactics — buses — promote human trafficking. We pray for conversion of heart. God protect our Sister’s [sic] and brothers in need.”

The comment from García-Siller came after Abbott dropped an additional 50 migrants off at the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris and days after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew two planeloads of asylum seekers from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard.

In a Friday interview on Fox News, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, admitted that transporting undocumented migrants across state lines is illegal and that the person caught doing so would likely be arrested.

García-Siller’s tweet isn’t the first he’s publicly called out Abbott. In August, the cleric encouraged the Texas Governor to “love his people” and “resolve” mistakes made following the mass shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School.

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This article appears in Sep 7-20, 2022.

Michael Karlis is a Staff Writer at the San Antonio Current. He is a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., whose work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Orlando...