New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced earlier this week that the city will be imposing restrictions on the buses arriving with unlawful migrants.
These buses have been arriving in New York City and other sanctuary cities since April 2022, with more than 85,000 unlawful migrants being transported from Texas in that time.
The new restrictions require any bus with the fares paid for by a third party to provide a 32-hour notice of arrival, according to the executive order issued by Adams on Wednesday.
Additionally, the drivers will be required to drop off the passengers at a specific time and location provided by the city and give the city information that could help identify the bus.
Finally, drivers must provide the city with the number of passengers, including children, adults traveling alone, and families.
While announcing these new restrictions, Adams accused the Texas governor of using unlawful migrants as “political pawns” to help him push his agenda.
“And we need Gov. Abbott to stop playing games with innocent lives,” stated Adams, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Abbott’s director of communications, Renae Eze, responded to Adams’ remarks and said that “[t]he sheer hypocrisy of these Democrat mayors knows no bounds,” per the Houston Chronicle.
Adams appeared on CNN This Morning and explained why he ordered these restrictions, stating that the number of arrivals in the city has the “potential of destabilizing the financial obligations that we have in our cities.”
“Every agency and delivery of service in my city is going to be drastically impacted by the actions of picking up the tab of $5 billion this fiscal year, $12 billion over three years that’s coming out of a substantial amount of our budget,” explained Adams, according to a transcript provided by the City of New York.
These new restrictions come shortly after Abbott escalated the process by flying unlawful migrants to Chicago, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, said that this escalation occurred due to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “failing to live up to his city’s ‘Welcoming City’ ordinance by targeting migrant buses from Texas.”
Chicago previously announced similar restrictions on buses carrying unlawful migrants, with bus drivers receiving fines for not following the guidelines set forth by the city.
This program, which is part of Operation Lone Star, is meant to address the high number of unlawful migrants entering the U.S. through the southern border.
Record numbers of arrivals have been reported, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection having already confirmed over 250,000 encounters with unlawful migrants at the border in December.
This number is currently on pace to break the previous monthly record of 269,735 encounters that happened in September.
