D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine is offering up to $50,000 in individual grants to organizations helping support migrants being bused to D.C. from Texas and Arizona.

“The TX and AZ governors’ decision to bus asylum-seeking migrants to the District is causing a humanitarian crisis, and we are answering the call for help,” Racine said on Twitter.

Racine’s office will offer a total of $150,000 in funding, with each organization eligible for as much as $50,000.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has sent more than 5,000 migrants to D.C. since April. More have been sent from Arizona by fellow Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. Buses from the states have been dropping vulnerable people off at Union Station for months now, in order to make a political point about the Biden Administration’s immigration policies.

A network of local mutual aid workers, churches, and a federally-funded nonprofit has stepped up to help welcome migrants and get them basic support. They’re providing shelter, food, clothing, medical care, and help with transportation if individuals don’t want to say in D.C.

The work is exhausting — and costly. One mutual aid organizer estimated the groups had spent upwards of $90,000 in a single month of providing basic aid. Nonprofit SAMU First Response received a federal grant to help its team of 25 paid employees with the response, but they still lack capacity to meet the full need. Local volunteers and money from donations have been forced to fill the gap.

“OAG recognizes the swift action of local organizations to assist those arriving to our city and the strain this is causing to their existing resources and potentially public safety,” the announcement of the new grant money acknowledges.

The financial assistance from the Office of the Attorney General represents the first time the D.C. government has put forward money to help the local mutual aid efforts. (In Montgomery County, officials found a 50-bed space for organizers to use.)

Racine’s announcement comes almost a week after the Pentagon denied D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s request for 150 members of the D.C. National Guard to help SAMU First Response and volunteers run intake at Union Station. She had also asked for a federal building to house the response work, and federally provided transportation to get people there.

In their denial, Department of Defense officials said D.C. already has enough federal help, in the form of the grant to SAMU First Response, to provide help to arriving migrants.

Bowser’s requests were roundly criticized by advocates, who said the mayor’s lack of direct action to help asylum seekers stands in stark contrast to her declaration that D.C. is a sanctuary city.

Bowser, for her part, said she’d revise the request and continue to ask the federal government to take the lead on the crisis.

“We really need federal coordination, or if the federal government’s not going to do it, they need to at least to get out of our way and give us the resources that we need, in our National Guard and a site,” she said at a press conference last week.

Previously: 

Feds Deny D.C.’s Request For National Guard Support To Aid Migrants

Local Organizers Say Bowser Administration Is Failing Migrants Being Bused To D.C.

Inside The Local Mutual Aid Effort Supporting The Migrants Texas Bused To D.C.