The governor of Texas has begun chartering planes to fly migrants from his state to Chicago and has stepped up his campaign to draw attention to the border crisis.
Greg Abbott has previously transported tens of thousands of migrants to Chicago and other cities, trying to get their cities' and states' Democratic rules to take into account the crisis his state is facing.
On Tuesday, the first plane took off from El Paso and landed in Chicago at 7:51 p.m. with 91 migrants on board.
Two people got out and fled, WTTW News reported, but the rest remained in the airport terminal – where 300 migrants now reside. Others sleep in police stations, with nearly 14,100 migrants in city shelters.
Migrants line up in El Paso on Tuesday to board planes to Chicago
Tuesday marks the first time the governor of Texas has used planes to transport the migrants. The cost of the flight to Texas taxpayers was not disclosed
Chicago, like New York City, is struggling to cope with the influx: Since Abbott began the bus policy in August 2022, 607 buses have arrived in Chicago, carrying nearly 26,100 people.
On Sunday, a five-year-old migrant boy died in the freezing cold of the Pilsen shelter, south of the city center.
A video obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com shows 2,300 migrants huddled under a leaky roof in freezing temperatures.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson condemned Abbott for Tuesday's flight.
On Monday, he said Abbott's policy of moving migrants north was “evil” and was seriously harming people.
'They just drop people off everywhere. Do you understand how ragged and how bad that is?' Johnson said.
“You're just going to put people on a bus, take them somewhere and drop them off in the middle of the night? It's sickening.'
On Wednesday, Johnson attacked Abbott again, saying the policy was inhumane.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called Abbott's policies “evil” and inhumane
Migrants from Venezuela are seen camping in the lobby of a Chicago police station
“The problem is not just how we respond in the city of Chicago,” he said.
“It's the fact that we have a governor, a governor, an elected official in the state of Texas, who puts families on buses with no shoes, cold, wet, tired, hungry, scared, traumatized, and then they come to the city of Texas . Chicago, where we have homelessness, mental health clinics that are shuttered and closed. We have people looking for work.
“The governor of Texas needs to take a look in the mirror with the chaos he is causing for the people of this country.”
Abbott's press secretary hit back, saying Johnson should discuss the issue with fellow Democrat Joe Biden.
“Because Mayor Johnson is failing to enforce his city's 'Welcoming City' ordinance by targeting migrant buses from Texas, we are expanding our operation to include flights to Chicago, as the Biden administration has across the country done,” said Andrew Mahaleris. , a spokesperson for Abbott.
“Until President Biden acts and does his job to secure the border, Texas will continue to take historic action to help our local partners respond to this crisis created by Biden.”
O'Hare International Airport housed hundreds of migrants in a restricted area as the crisis gained traction this summer
The shelter where the five-year-old boy died Sunday in Chicago is run by Favorite Healthcare Staffing, a Kansas-based contractor, which the city has paid $100 million to operate since September 2022.
Five-year-old Jean Carlo Martinez Rivero fell ill at the Pilsen migrant shelter and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital days later on Sunday
A photo of a little girl dressed in a pink puffer jacket and matching pants and hat showed the warehouse failing to keep out the winter chill
This video shows several children coughing and crying as their temperatures were taken and examined by volunteers
It is not clear how much the flight cost or whether Texas taxpayers funded the plan.
Since April 2022, Abbott has bused migrants to Washington, DC, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles – all Democratic-run cities.
In total, Texas has transported more than 80,000 people from border towns to these six cities, according to the governor's office.
The number of migrants crossing the border is breaking records.
There were 130,000 attempts to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in the first 17 days of November, and at least 167,000 so far in December.
At a popular crossing, Eagle Pass, in Texas, 14,000 migrants arrived Tuesday — near a town where only 30,000 Texans live.
Eagle Pass has only 58 uniformed police officers and many of them also assist the Border Patrol in dealing with the crowds.
Border Patrol agents normally stationed at checkpoints along the route into the U.S. have also been redirected to assist in Eagle Pass.
Law enforcement officials fear drug cartels will take advantage of the situation to smuggle both people and drugs across the border amid the chaos.
“It's an absolute collapse of the border,” said Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a retired border agent who now runs neighboring Terrell County.
'You increase the number of escapes, you increase the chance for cartels to successfully bring in drugs.
“It's a wide open border. Come as you please.”
Aerial view of migrants lining up at the border fence attempting to enter the US, in Ciudad Juarez Chihuahua, Mexico
Thousands of migrants wrapped in silver thermal blankets, many hoping to seek asylum in the US, have gathered under a bridge in Eagle Pass, Texas, waiting for their chance to surrender to US Border Patrol.
Border Patrol agents herd hundreds of migrants into lines at a processing center
Crowds of new arrivals await their turn to be processed by the Border Patrol after their surrender
Photos and videos from Lukeville, Arizona, show hundreds of newcomers carrying backpacks and walking their meager belongings along the wall
The federal government responded to the surge at the border by completely closing ports of entry, wreaking havoc on international trade.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the Border Patrol, announced it would close rail lines into the U.S. at Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas, to accommodate the influx of migrants.
Vehicle and pedestrian crossings at ports in San Ysidro, California, and Lukeville, Arizona, were also closed in recent weeks.
In Eagle Pass, the migrant crisis is disrupting the lives of people who commute to and from Mexico every day, turning commutes between the two countries that used to take less than 10 minutes into 11-hour waits due to international bridge closures.