Texas has bused more than 105,300 immigrants to sanctuary cities across the United States since launching its program to remove them from the state.
The first busload of immigrants from the Lone Star State arrived in Washington, D.C. in April 2022, just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol and right across the street from the Fox News office, where cameras were rolling.
Gov. Greg Abbott has sent more than 12,500 border crossers to the nation’s capital.
New York City has received the most destination cities, with more than 39,100 sent to Gotham since August 2022.
Since August 2022, 32,200 migrants have been transported to Chicago.
The surprise arrival of migrants in those three cities caused chaos and commotion, and local officials criticized Abbott for not warning them in advance.
Texas has bused more than 105,000 immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities since 2022, the governor’s office announced Friday.
A bus carrying immigrants from Texas arrives at the Port Authority bus station in New York, United States, on May 3, 2023.
Alejandra Pérez, her ex-partner Jader Castro and their children Sharlott Barrios, 9, and Juan Sebastián Castro, 5, all Colombian asylum seekers, are greeted by a volunteer after arriving by bus in Chicago from Texas, in downtown Chicago, Illinois. United States, October 25, 2023
Dozens of immigrant families are seen arriving from Texas at the Port Authority bus terminal early on September 6, 2023.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott Started Migrant Bus Program in April 2022
New York officials accused the Republican governor of playing politics by sending immigrants to Democratic-run cities and called his use of immigrants to score points “cruel.”
“Our city has been and always will be a city of immigrants that welcomes newcomers with open arms,” Mayor Eric Adams said at the time.
But what a difference a few hundred immigrants make.
Just two months later, Adams had declared an emergency, asking for help to care for the 61,000 migrants who were in the city’s shelters in October 2022.
Since Texas has only bused about 39,000 two years later, Abbott did not send all the people in the Big Apple shelters there.
Some 21,000 Chinese immigrants have arrived in New York since October 2022, according to the New York Times.
Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, held a joint news conference Wednesday with the mayors of Chicago and Denver, who are also struggling to address the surge in migrant arrivals.
Immigrants are seen arriving in Chicago, on a bus from Texas
At least 4.35 million migrants have entered Texas since 2021, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the U.S. Border Patrol. These figures reflect only those who have been detained by federal agents, not so-called “escapees” or illegal immigrants who were not detained.
Chinese nationals are entering the country largely through Arizona and California, not the Lone Star State.
As a recent DailyMail.com report revealed, many of these Asian immigrants have the money to travel from the border to their final destinations.
Unlike the hordes of South American migrants arriving in Texas, who often cross the border without a cent to their name.
With Texas border cities like El Paso and Eagle Pass not their final destination, local governments and nonprofits have reluctantly signed on to Governor Abbott’s bus program, which offers free rides to any migrant who volunteer.
Immigrants have to sign a waiver before boarding a charter flight out of Texas in cities such as McAllen, Laredo, Brownsville, Del Rio, Eagle Pass and El Paso.
From there, immigrants are taken to the city of their choice, which is usually New York, Chicago and Denver.
Transportation has cost the state a staggering $86.1 million or about $1,650 per migrant from April 2022 to October 2023.
Mile High City, which only began receiving immigrants in May, has so far received 16,600 immigrants from Abbott.
Abbott has sent 3,400 people to Philadelphia and another 1,500 to Los Angeles.
Northern cities such as New York and Chicago have complained that they could not bear the financial burden of caring for migrants, while a city such as Eagle Pass, Texas, received 23,000 migrants in just one week in December.
New York City has an annual budget of $100 billion compared to Eagle Pass, whose 28,000 residents operate on a budget of $18 million.
“Texas communities like Eagle Pass and El Paso should not have to bear the unprecedented surge in illegal immigration caused by President Biden’s reckless open border policies,” Abbott declared in September.
Since Biden took office in 2021, more than 4.3 million migrants have been encountered by the US Border Patrol crossing into Texas, federal statistics show.
The number of immigrants Abbott has bussed out of the state is just 4% of all who have crossed into the Lone Star State.
And yet, Abbott has caused chaos and dominated the national narrative with only 105,000 immigrants.
“I think what he’s trying to draw attention to is the fact that there is a crisis and that it needs to be addressed,” Eric R. Welsh, a partner at Reeves Immigration Law Group in Los Angeles, told DailyMail.com.
Despite lawsuits against charter companies to try to stop buses from reaching New York and Chicago, Abbott just changed tactics and began transporting immigrants to those cities.
In a statement Friday, the governor vowed to continue “filling the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border.”