(Headline USA) The Los Angeles City Council voted this week to pursue lawsuits against Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott for shipping illegal immigrants to the self-proclaimed sanctuary city, accusing him of participating in human trafficking.
The council voted unanimously on Wednesday for two motions to consider the suits against Abbott and the state of Texas.
“These motions are about investigating whether Gov. Greg Abbott committed kidnapping, human trafficking or any other crimes when he sent vulnerable families on a 23-hour bus ride with little or no food or water,” Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez said. “The message is clear that the city of Los Angeles will not accept this kind of behavior.”
Soto-Martinez went on to accuse Abbott and other Republican officials who have also bused illegal aliens out of their states into blue jurisdictions of using migrants to score “political points” and “playing with people’s lives.”
Texas has been overwhelmed by crime, a homeless crisis and dwindling local resources as a result of the swarm of illegals pouring across President Joe Biden’s open border. Abbott began sending buses of migrants to Los Angeles in June. He’s sent more than 10 buses with 400 migrants total to the city over the past two months, with one arriving during the council’s Wednesday meeting.
A spokesperson for Abbott, Andrew Mahaleris, blasted the Los Angeles City Council as “hypocrites,” pointing out that the city voted to become a sanctuary city in June, just one week before the first bus from Texas arrived.
He also pushed back on allegations that migrants were not properly cared for during the trip. Migrants “signed a voluntary consent waiver available in multiple languages upon boarding that they agreed on the destination,” he added.
Abbott said he will continue to ship migrants to Democratic cities until the Biden administration decides to take the border crisis seriously.
“Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status,” Abbott said in June. “Our border communities are on the frontlines of President Biden’s border crisis, and Texas will continue providing this much-needed relief until he steps up to do his job and secure the border.”
