Gov. Greg Abbott has confirmed that Texas has begun flying unlawful migrants to the sanctuary city of Chicago as the state continues to deal with a surge in the number of people crossing the southern border.
More than 120 unlawful migrants were flown to Chicago on Tuesday in an escalation of Abbott’s program that has bused more than 75,000 people to sanctuary cities since April 2022, according to a news release sent to The Dallas Express.
Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, said that the escalation to flights came due to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “failing to live up to his city’s ‘Welcoming City’ ordinance by targeting migrant buses from Texas,” per The Texas Tribune.
“Until President Biden steps up and does his job to secure the border, Texas will continue taking historic action to help our local partners respond to this Biden-made crisis,” added Mahaleris.
Bus drivers transporting unlawful migrants to Chicago have begun receiving fines for not following specific city guidelines, prompting some to take passengers to locations other than the designated drop-off sites, according to Fox News.
Abbott addressed the flight with a social media post on Wednesday, declaring, “Sanctuary city Chicago started obstructing and targeting our busing mission.”
“Until Biden steps up to secure the border, we will continue to provide overwhelmed Texas border towns with much-needed relief,” continued the governor.
The White House spoke out against the flight, as spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said, “Abbott is showing how little regard or respect he has for human beings.”
“This latest political stunt just adds to his tally of extreme policies which seek to demonize and dehumanize people,” Hernández claimed in a statement published by The Associated Press.
This flight took off just one day after Abbott signed multiple border security bills into law, including a new law that will make unlawful entry into the state a crime.
Texas Senate Bill 4 will also allow law enforcement officers to apprehend those suspected of violating this law.
While Abbott has previously stated that Senate Bill 4, along with the two other bills, will “better protect Texans AND Americans from Biden’s open border policies,” others have expressed disdain for the new law.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced shortly after the bill was signed that it has filed a lawsuit to challenge the new law, alleging that it “bypasses federal law,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Adriana Piñon, legal director of the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement that Senate Bill 4 is “one of the most extreme anti-immigrant bills in the country,” adding that “[t]he bill overrides bedrock constitutional principles and flouts federal immigration law while harming Texans, in particular Brown and Black communities.”
