Texas Sidesteps NYC Rule About Busing Migrants

In response to migrants being sent to New York City from southern states, Mayor Eric Adams last week issued an order requiring charter bus companies to provide city officials with drop-off times, locations, and lists of passengers at least 32 hours in advance. The bus companies quickly found a workaround. As CNN reports, migrants were dropped at transit points in New Jersey over the weekend with train tickets to New York City. "At this point in time it seems train tickets are being secured for the migrants and they have been making their way to their final destination," says Michael Gonnelli, mayor of the NJ town of Secaucus, where at least four buses carrying migrants stopped over the weekend.

Jersey City's Office of Emergency Management said Sunday that about 10 buses "from various locations in Texas and one from Louisiana have arrived at various transit stations throughout the state, including Secaucus, Fanwood, Edison, Trenton," since Saturday. They were carrying nearly 400 migrants. Republican-led states along the southern border have sent tens of thousands of asylum seekers to Democratic-led sanctuary cities in an effort to force President Biden to secure the border. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott claims to have sent nearly 100,000 migrants to Democrat-run cities nationwide, per USA Today. Leaders of cities including NYC, Chicago, and Denver say they've been overwhelmed.

Adams' order was meant to provide advanced notice of drop-offs, which were to be limited to weekday mornings when emergency services would be available to migrants, per USA Today. Abbott "is instead now dropping families off in surrounding cities and states in the cold, dark of night with train tickets to travel to New York City," a New York City Hall rep tells CNN. "This is exactly why we have been coordinating with surrounding cities and counties since before issuing our order to encourage them to take similar executive action to protect migrants against this cruelty." CNN reports a plane carrying hundreds of migrants from Texas arrived in Rockford, Illinois, around 1am Sunday. The passengers were then bused to Chicago, some 90 miles away. (More migrants stories.)