TRENTON, NJ– In Edison, New Jersey, the mayor warned that he would send people back to the border if they came to his city on buses. In Rockford, Illinois, authorities said 355 migrants who had landed on a charter flight would not stay.
“NO MIGRANT BUSES THIS EXIT,” said signs along Interstate 55 in Grundy County, Illinois, southwest of Chicago, ahead of the Christmas weekend.
Nervous officials in suburbs and outlying towns near Chicago and New York are giving migrants arriving from the southern border a cold shoulder amid efforts to bypass restrictions on buses in those two cities, opening a new front in response the efforts led by Republican Texas Governor Greg. Abbott must pay for migrants leaving his state.
The suburban response comes amid what the acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection calls “unprecedented” arrivals, with illegal entries surpassing 10,000 last month. For months, Democratic mayors from major cities, including Eric Adams of New York and Brandon Johnson of Chicago, have begged the Biden administration for help in dealing with the influx.
A plane carrying 355 migrants from San Antonio landed at Chicago Rockford International Airport at 1 a.m. on New Year's Eve. Local officials said no one left the airport, about 85 miles (137 kilometers) from downtown Chicago, before boarding the buses. The city of Chicago said migrants boarded eight buses chartered by Abbott on the Boeing 777 to be dropped off in “several suburbs.” Abbott also chartered a flight last month that brought 120 migrants to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
Chicago and New York recently started cracking down on buses that make unscheduled deliveries, with fines and tickets.
Some Chicago suburbs have adopted or are considering similar rules. Tinley Park's ordinance promises to “cite, impound or take other appropriate action” on buses that make unannounced stops in the city of about 60,000 residents. The village of Broadview, a suburb of 8,000 west of Chicago, said last week it had to take action “because unloading passengers in inclement or severe weather without a coordinated plan poses a significant threat to the health, safety and welfare” of the people on board the buses.
In New Jersey, migrants are being dropped off at train stations in Jersey City, Secaucus and Trenton, according to state officials. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy's office has said the state is mainly used as a transit country and that “almost all” are headed to New York. Murphy's office said the state is cooperating with federal and local authorities, but did not provide further details.
Murphy said last summer that New Jersey could not support the arrivals amid discussion that the Biden administration was considering Atlantic City airport as a possible destination. It was a change of tune for Murphy, a self-described progressive who first ran for governor in 2017 and suggested he would declare New Jersey a “sanctuary state,” a loose term for a place with immigrant-friendly policies.
Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora said most of the migrants who arrived in his city have moved on to New York, but 10 people have stayed with relatives in the area.
“We sympathize if someone tries to apply for asylum or if someone tries to take him in. But we don't have the capacity to take him in,” he said.
Edison Mayor Sam Joshi said in a Facebook post that he has “directed our law enforcement and emergency management departments to charter a bus to take the illegal migrants directly back to the southern Texas-Mexico border.”
The mayors of New York and Chicago have blamed Abbott.
“This is a diabolical plan by this governor and we will have to respond based on what he does,” Adams said Tuesday.
Hours after the flight landed in Rockford, Johnson told CBS' “Face the Nation” that “Abbott is determined to continue sowing the seeds of chaos” by allowing people to arrive in the middle of the night without notice.
Abbott has defended his tactics, saying President Joe Biden must do more to secure the border. His spokesperson Renae Eze also renewed attacks on Democratic mayors on Tuesday, saying their hypocrisy “knows no bounds.”
Grundy County Sheriff Ken Briley said the highway signs south of Chicago were part of an emergency response to prevent people from being dropped off outside in the cold without money, food or winter clothing over the holiday weekend. No buses stopped in the county and the signs have since been removed, Briley said.
About 30 migrants from Venezuela were recently dropped off at a gas station in Kankakee County at 4:30 a.m., according to Sheriff Mike Downey. The people “were left without money, food and adequate clothing and were under the impression that they had reached their destination.”
“I don't think this problem is going to stop,” Briley said. “We are a rural community. We just don't have the same kind of tax base as the city of Chicago to provide those resources.” ___
Savage reported from Chicago. Associated Press reporters Melissa Perez Winder in Morris, Illinois, Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas, and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
___
This story has been corrected to reflect that the flight to Rockford landed on New Year's Eve, instead of New Year's Day.