Texas has bused more than 105,300 migrants to U.S. holding cities since it launched its program to remove them from the state.
The first bus full of migrants from the Lone Star State arrived in Washington, D.C., in April 2022, a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol and near the Fox News office where cameras were rolling.
Gov. Greg Abbott has now sent more than 12,500 border crossers to the nation’s capital.
New York City has received the most of any destination city, with more than 39,100 sent to Gotham since August 2022.
As many as 32,200 migrants have been transported to Chicago since August 2022.
The surprise arrival of migrants in these three cities caused chaos and shock, with local officials criticizing Abbott for not giving them advance warning.
Texas has bused more than 105,000 migrants to so-called sanctuary cities since 2022, the governor’s office announced Friday.
A bus carrying migrants from Texas arrives at the Port Authority bus station of New York, United States on May 3, 2023
Alejandra Perez, her former partner Jader Castro and her children Sharlott Barrios, 9, and Juan Sebastian Castro, 5, all Colombian asylum seekers, are welcomed by a volunteer after arriving in Chicago by bus from Texas, in downtown Chicago, Illinois. USA, October 25, 2023
Dozens of migrant families arrive at the Port Authority Bus Terminal from Texas early September 6, 2023
Texas Governor Greg Abbott started the migrant bus program in April 2022
Officials in New York accused the Republican governor of playing politics by sending migrants to Democratic-run cities and called his use of migrants to score points “cruel.”
“Our city has been and always will be a city of immigrants, welcoming newcomers with open arms,” Mayor Eric Adams said at the time.
But what a difference a few hundred migrants make.
Just two months later, Adams had declared a state of emergency and requested assistance to accommodate the 61,000 migrants who were in the city’s shelters by October 2022.
Since Texas has only transported about 39,000 people two years later, not all of the people in Big Apple shelters were sent there by Abbott.
According to the report, some 21,000 Chinese migrants have come to New York since October 2022. New York Times.
Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, held a joint news conference Wednesday with the mayors of Chicago and Denver, who are also struggling to deal with the increase in migrants
Migrants are seen arriving in Chicago on a bus from Texas
At least 4.35 million migrants have entered Texas since 2021, according to US Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the US Border Patrol. These numbers reflect only those stopped by federal agents, and not so-called “escapees” or illegal immigrants who were not taken into custody
Chinese nationals enter the country largely through Arizona and California, and not through the Lone Star State.
As recent DailyMail.com reporting shows, many of these Asian migrants have the money to travel from the border to their final destination.
Unlike the hordes of South American migrants arriving in Texas, who often cross the border without a cent in their pockets.
With border cities like El Paso and Eagle Pass not their final destinations, local governments and nonprofits have reluctantly signed on to Governor Abbott’s bus program, which offers free rides to any migrant who volunteers.
Migrants must sign a waiver before boarding a charter from Texas in cities such as McAllen, Laredo, Brownsville, Del Rio, Eagle Pass and El Paso.
From there, the migrants are dropped off to the city of their choice, usually New York, Chicago and Denver.
The transportation cost the state as much as $86.1 million, or about $1,650 per migrant, between April 2022 and October 2023.
The Mile High City, which only began receiving migrants in May, has received 16,600 migrants from Abbott so far.
Abbott has sent 3,400 people to Philadelphia and another 1,500 to Los Angeles.
Northern cities like New York and Chicago have whined about not being able to handle the financial burden of caring for migrants, while a city like Eagle Pass, Texas, saw 23,000 migrants in just one week in December.
New York City has an annual budget of $100 trillion, compared to Eagle Pass, whose 28,000 residents operate on a budget of $18 million.
“Texas communities like Eagle Pass and El Paso should not have to endure the unprecedented wave of illegal immigration caused by President Biden’s reckless open border policies.” Abbott stated in September.
Since Biden took office in 2021, more than 4.3 million migrants have been encountered by U.S. Border Patrol agents entering Texas, federal statistics show.
Abbott’s number of migrants leaving the state is just 4% of all those who have entered the Lone Star State.
And yet, Abbott has created chaos and dominated the national narrative with just 105,000 migrants.
“I think he’s trying to draw attention to the fact that there is a crisis and it needs to be addressed,” Eric R. Welsh, a partner at Reeves Immigration Law Group in LA, told DailyMail.com.
Despite lawsuits against the charter companies to try to prevent the buses from arriving in New York and Chicago, Abbott has just changed his tactics and started flying migrants to those cities.
In a statement Friday, the governor pledged to continue filling “the dangerous gaps left by the Biden administration’s refusal to secure the border.”