New York City is buying tickets for thousands of migrants to travel by bus or plane to Texas, where many of them first made their way to the sanctuary city in the first place, amid an ongoing battle between officials over how to handle the migrant crisis.
New York City, which will be home to more than 200,000 immigrants as of 2022, has been providing housing options for immigrants ever since. Last year, it opened a registration center to issue one-way flight tickets to immigrants.
Fox News confirms that 4,500 migrants were sent to Texas using bus or plane tickets purchased by the city. The figure was first reported by Bloomberg News.
NYC Pursues THOUSANDS OF HOTEL ROOMS TO PASS IMMIGRANTS AMID MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR COSTS: REPORT
New York City Mayor Eric Adams (Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images/File)
According to Mayor Eric Adams’ office, the top five destinations for immigrants leaving the Big Apple are Texas, Illinois, Florida, New York State and Colorado.
In total, they issued more than 4,700 tickets and the majority, about 4,500, went to Texas. It was not clear how many of these migrants were coming from buses sent to NYC from Texas.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began busing migrants to New York City and other sanctuary cities in 2022 in what he said was an effort to ease pressure on overwhelmed border communities. He singled out sanctuary cities — cities that limit cooperation with law enforcement — because he says they fuel the problem.
When asked how this program works, the Mayor’s office said, “Whenever they have the desire to go back to another place, we buy their tickets. Mostly flights, but we also buy bus tickets.
Abbott’s office criticized the handling of the crisis by the Biden administration and accused Adams of hypocrisy.
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (Reuters/Callaghan O’hare/File)
“Border Czar Kamala Harris and the federal government continue to refuse to enforce the immigration laws that are already on the books and do their jobs to secure the border, allowing high levels of illegal immigration, deadly drugs like fentanyl, and weapons into our country. State after state,” the spokesperson said. Andrew Mahaleris told Fox News in a statement.
“Hypocrite Mayor Adams called busloads of immigrants ‘moral,’ while Harris called immigrants a ‘political platform’ and did the same themselves. Until Border Czar Harris steps up and does his job to secure the border, Texas will continue. We are using all tools and techniques to respond on the Biden-Harris border crisis,” he said.
New York City has struggled with an influx of immigrants, which has strained social services and led to scenes of immigrants lining up outside the Roosevelt Hotel.
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Spending on the migrant crisis is expected to exceed $5 billion, and Adams has said the cost could rise to more than $10 billion by the end of the next fiscal year. Previous estimates had put that number higher.
At the height of the crisis, the city was taking in about 4,000 people a week. But that has dwindled to hundreds in recent months as the border crisis eased after a presidential announcement from President Biden that asylum applications would be limited.
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Recently, the city announced that it would be closing the giant tent shelter on Randall’s Island. Officials said the number of asylum seekers in shelters has fallen for 14 consecutive weeks and is now at its lowest level in more than a year.
“We’re not out of the woods yet, but make no mistake, thanks to our smart management strategies and effective advocacy, we’ve got this problem under control,” Adams said in a statement this month. “We don’t escape every day we open new shelters. We talk about closing. We don’t talk about how much we spent. We talk about how much we saved.”