New York City Mayor Eric Adams is asking for federal aid as a bus carrying migrants from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott arrives in New York City.
In a tweet on Sunday, Mr Adams said the Texas governor was “using innocent people as political pawns to create a crisis”.
“New Yorkers are stepping up to address this — that’s what our city values,” he said. “But we need help from the federal government – funding, technical assistance, etc.”
In April, Mr. Abbott began Operation Lone Star, which sent buses carrying undocumented immigrants to Washington, D.C., on the southern Texas border.
The governor said his efforts, widely slammed by critics as a “political stunt”, would help ease pressure on border communities, who found themselves “overwhelmed by record numbers of illegal border crossings, while pushing the border across the border.” The crisis is on the doorstep of President Biden.”
“Right now, Washington, D.C., has to realize, in a very minimal way, what Texas is going to have to deal with because of the open border policy that the Biden administration has allowed,” Mr. Abbott said in a press statement released shortly after. After Easter, the program was praised for its success in providing “relief” to Texans.
On Friday, Mr. Abbott announced that he had begun sending buses to New York after previously denying Mr. Adams’ claims that immigrants sent from Texas had flooded the city’s homeless shelters.
On Sunday, Mr Adams visited a New York bus station to be greeted by an arriving bus.
“It’s scary when you think about what the governor is doing,” he said at the terminal, according to politics“Some families were on the bus and wanted to go somewhere else, but they weren’t allowed to do that. They were forced to get on the bus.”
“Our goal is to immediately understand the needs of each family and provide them with the help they need.”
An NBC 5 investigation in Dallas found that, according to recent estimates, more than 200 buses have arrived in Washington, D.C., with more than 4,000 immigrants since the operation began — taxpayers in the Lone Star State lost per passenger About $1,400.
In early July, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser also asked the Biden administration to enlist the help of the National Guard to take migrants on buses.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rejected Ms Bowser’s request, saying the move would “negatively impact” the force’s readiness.
