(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this week invited New York City Mayor Eric Adams to visit the southern border and see first-hand the costs Texans are bearing as a result of “President Biden’s border crisis.” By Friday, he’d announced the first bus of illegal immigrants had arrived in New York City from Texas.
Abbott’s invitation came after Adams publicly blamed the Texas governor for the influx of illegal immigrants being flown into his “sanctuary city,” calling it a “humanitarian crisis.” The city’s budget, its social services, including its homeless shelters, are all strained, and its public schools will be experiencing an influx of enrollment of non-English speakers he said the city doesn’t have the resources to support.
At the time, Abbott clarified the influx of people arriving in New York City were being transported by the Biden administration and Texas had only sent several thousand people to Washington, D.C.
But after Adams didn’t take up his offer to visit the southern border, Abbott began busing people to NYC.
On Friday, Abbott announced the arrival of the first bus that dropped off people Friday morning at the Port Authority Bus Terminal Gate 14.
“Because of President Biden’s continued refusal to acknowledge the crisis caused by his open border policies, the State of Texas has had to take unprecedented action to keep our communities safe,” Abbott said.
“In addition to Washington, D.C., New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants, who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Eric Adams has boasted about within the sanctuary city. I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief.”
Abbott also said he would continue to bus people to Washington, D.C. “until Biden does his job of securing the border.”
He told Fox News, “Public officials across the country … need to realize the magnitude of the chaos created by Biden’s open border policies. They’re up in arms about a few thousand people coming into their communities over the past few months. In any one sector of the state of Texas, we have more than 5,000 people coming across every single day. We’re full in the state of Texas. Our communities are overrun.”
Last week, Adams held a news conference saying the influx of people was “a real burden on New Yorkers as we’re trying to do the right thing. We already have an overburdened shelter system so now we’re talking about food, clothing, school. This is going to impact our schools because we do not turn away individuals because they are undocumented. There’s just a whole host of things that this is going to produce and that’s why we need help.”
As one of the few cities in the U.S. with “right to housing” laws, New York City is required to provide emergency shelter for every unhoused person.
Abbott pointed out that the mayor’s problem wasn’t with him but with Biden.
“President Biden’s open border policies created this ongoing humanitarian crisis,” he said, “allowing record-high illegal crossings and deadly drugs like fentanyl to flood into our state. A crisis that has overrun and overwhelmed our border towns and communities across our state, whose requests for help have gone ignored and unanswered by the Biden Administration.”
While Adams and the mayor of Washington, D.C., have complained about receiving several hundred people a day combined, Texas is dealing with over 5,000 people entering its five Border Patrol sectors every day.
In June in the Big Bend Sector, there were nearly 3,000 people who were apprehended or recorded as gotaways. In the Del Rio Sector. there were over 57,000; in the El Paso Sector, over 35,000; in Laredo Sector, over 14,000; in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, over 49,000.
The Biden administration has been releasing illegal immigrants from over 150 countries into the U.S. instead of deporting them or requiring them to remain in Mexico while their immigration-related claims are considered. The administration’s catch and release program is one of several policies that Florida has sued over.
U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell of the Northern District of Florida Pensacola Division said the administration’s catch and release position “was as remarkable as it is wrong because it is well established that no one, not even the President, is above the law and the Court unquestionably has the authority to say what the law is and to invalidate action of the executive branch that contravenes the law and/or the Constitution. Thus, if Florida’s allegations that Defendants are essentially flaunting the immigration laws are proven to be true, the Court most certainly can (and will) do something about it.”
Texas also has sued over numerous border security and immigration-related policies, having already won several cases.
