Gov Abbott busses 100 to Democrat-led Windy City after forking out $12million on trips to NYC and DC

Texas sent around 100 migrants to Chicago on Wednesday, as Republican Governor Greg Abbott expands his effort to push responsibility for border crossers to his Democratic political opponents.

The buses arrived at Chicago’s Union Station at around 7:30pm – after it was revealed that Texas has already spent $12million on taking migrants to New York City and Washington DC. 

Among the 100 or so people who were on the buses, around 20 to 30 were small children. Pregnant women and children were among the busload. The migrants said they were from Venezuela.

Texas has bused more than 7,000 migrants to Washington DC and New York City since April, forking out millions on the initiative through August 8, according to state data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Texas has paid $12,707,720.92 to Wynne Transportation, the charter service that is taking migrants to the various cities. 

More than 7,400 migrants have been bused to DC since April and more than 1,500 to New York City since August 5. 

Abbott, who is seeking a third term in November’s midterm elections, says the buses are needed because Democratic President Joe Biden has failed to secure the border with Mexico. 

U.S. Border Patrol made a record 1.8 million migrant arrests at the southwest border between October 1, 2021, to July 31, 2022.

Abbott on Wednesday night called out Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, for her city’s ‘sanctuary’ law limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

‘President Biden’s inaction at our southern border continues putting the lives of Texans—and Americans—at risk and is overwhelming our communities,’ Abbott began.

‘To continue to provide much-needed relief to our small, overrun border towns, Chicago will join fellow sanctuary cities…as an additional drop off location.

‘Mayor Lightfoot loves to tout the responsibility of her city to welcome all regardless of legal status,’ Abbott said in a statement. ‘I look forward to seeing this responsibility in action as these migrants receive resources from a sanctuary city with the capacity to serve them.’

Abbott’s office has said migrants are transported out of state only with their written permission although it is not clear what other options have been offered to the migrants. 

Following Abbott’s announcement, Lightfoot responded and confirmed on Twitter that about five dozen migrants had been sent to Chicago from Texas.  

‘Chicago is a welcoming city and as such has collaborated across various departments and agencies to ensure we greeted them with dignity and respect,’ Lightfoot said in a statement

‘We understand that many are fleeing violent, traumatic or otherwise unstable environments. We will respond with essential services while these individuals navigate the next steps of their journey and our community partners have been working diligently to provide a safety net.

‘As a city, we are doing everything we can to ensure these immigrants and their families can receive shelter, food, and most importantly protection. This is not new; Chicago welcomes hundreds of migrants every year to our city and provides much-needed assistance, the statement read. 

‘Unfortunately, Texas Governor Greg Abbot is without any shame or humanity. But ever since he put these racist practices of expulsion in place, we have been working with our community partners to ready the city to receive these individuals.’

Since Abbott began the busing effort, the Democratic mayors of Washington and New York City have clamored for federal assistance. 

It has also led to a war of words between New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Abbott.

Manuel Castro, the Big Apple’s commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs has accused Abbott of placing security on the buses in order stop migrants  from getting off the bus before reaching their destination. 

Abbott has refuted such claims.

‘Mayor Adams is flat-out lying and knows nothing about Texas’ busing operations. Migrants are allowed to disembark at any of the stops on the way to New York City or Washington, D.C., as they have been processed and released by the federal government,’ Abbott’s press secretary Renae Eze told the New York Post.

In Washington D.C., newly arrived migrants to the capital have struggled to find permanent housing and medical care.

The White House has said that Abbott’s efforts and a similar push by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, another Republican, are sowing chaos and using migrants as political pawns. 

But this past week, the Democrat-led city of El Paso, Texas also sent a bus carrying migrants to New York City and planned to send one to Chicago. 

Immigration watchdogs say nearly 4.9 million unauthorized immigrants have entered the U.S. since President Joe Biden took office last year, and have branded New York and Los Angeles as the country’s most dangerous sanctuary cities.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) says the record flow of people into the U.S. since Biden’s inauguration includes 3.4 million crossings at the southwest border and 900,000 others who slipped in there undetected.

The startling number adds to growing unease that the Biden administration is asleep at the wheel as record numbers cross the southern border, along with drugs and terror suspects, nudging a majority of Americans to conclude that this amounts to an ‘invasion’.

FAIR’s president Dan Stein said the nearly-5 million human inflow amounted to the ‘entire population of Ireland’ entering the U.S. illegally since 20 January, 2021. He accused the administration of the ‘sabotage of our nation’s immigration laws’.

 Drone camera footage of migrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, has put Democrats on the back foot, downplaying Biden’s policies as contributing to the record-breaking migration numbers.

Customs and Border Protection’s migrant encounter tracker for the fiscal year has crossed the 2 million mark for the first time in U.S. history. An Ipsos survey found 53 percent of people said human flows at the border amounted to an ‘invasion’.

In recent weeks, migrants have even been caught trying to cross the border in camouflage suits, and southern Republican-led states are making a show of bussing immigrants to Democrat-led northern cities. 

Republicans say Biden’s failure to visit the southern border since taking office last year proves that he does not take the migration crisis seriously and is not working hard enough to address the humanitarian issues facing border communities.

The administration last month said it had authorized completion of the U.S.-Mexico border wall near Yuma, Arizona. Biden pledged during his campaign to stop wall construction, but the administration later agreed to some barriers, citing safety.