To get around new regulations the mayor enacted to try and reduce the enormous volume of migrants being delivered to the city, several buses carrying migrants to New York City are using transit hubs in New Jersey.
Mayor Eric Adams of New York City issued an order last week requiring charter bus companies that transport migrants to the city to give NYC emergency management officials passenger manifests along with the anticipated drop-off times and locations at least 32 hours before the migrants arrive.
Adams’s order came in reaction to a months-long attempt by Republican-dominated states like Texas to transport tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers by bus and airplane to large cities headed by Democratic mayors, frequently with little or no assistance.
According to a news release from Secaucus, NJ Mayor Michael Gonnelli, at least four buses stopped at the Secaucus Junction rail station this weekend, with the first one arriving early on Saturday morning.
Gonnelli said, “From what we understand, the migrants took trains to New York City after being dropped off at the train station.” “It seems that the immigrants are now getting train tickets and traveling towards their ultimate destination.”
“Bus operators have figured out a loophole in the system to ensure the migrants reach their final destination, which is New York City,” according to Gonnelli.
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About 400 migrants were on “approximately 10 buses from various locations in Texas and one from Louisiana that have arrived at various transit stations throughout the state, including Secaucus, Fanwood, Edison, Trenton,” according to a Sunday post on Jersey City’s office of emergency management on X, the former Twitter.
Over 14,700 new immigrants have arrived in New York City in the past month, according to Adams’ statement from last week.”14 chartered buses with migrants arrived overnight from Texas, the highest recorded number in a single night,” the mayor stated last week.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott boasted on Friday that since August 2022, his state has bussed nearly 33,600 migrants to New York City.
A representative for New York City Hall sent a statement to CNN on Monday, saying, “Abbott continues to treat asylum seekers like political pawns, and is instead now dropping families off in vacationing in neighboring states and cities in the chilly dead of night with train tickets to New York City.”
“That is precisely why we have been working with neighboring cities and counties to encourage them to take similar executive action since before we issued our order,” the spokeswoman said.
Additionally, hundreds of asylum seekers landed at Illinois’ Rockford International Airport over the weekend, as previously reported by CNN. It was “the second recorded instance of the Texas governor transporting asylum-seekers via private plane,” according to a post by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on X.
After arriving on Sunday morning at around one in the morning local time, the migrants were placed on buses bound for Chicago.
On Facebook, the city of Rockford announced that if more aircraft land there, the local EOC will be triggered in order “to coordinate logistics and planning to ensure the safety of all involved throughout this process.”
According to a press release from Abbott, Texas has transported more than 28,000 asylum applicants to the Chicago region since August 2022.
On CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Mayor Johnson referred to the “unsustainable” state of affairs in Chicago as “an international and federal crisis that local governments are being asked to subsidize.”
In response to “rogue buses” from Texas dumping off migrants all over the city, Chicago passed a city ordinance earlier this month, which allowed the city to start impounding and towing buses,
Senator Graham delays help to Israel and Ukraine due to border concerns.
Republican senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham declared on Sunday that Republicans will stick to their stance that funding for Israel and Ukraine cannot be approved without an agreement on border security.
He stated on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” “Ukraine, I want to help desperately, but we have to help ourselves.” “As long as the border is still broken, I cannot return to South Carolina and discuss providing aid to Israel and Ukraine.”
Graham expressed his hope that Republicans would join talks to enact help, calling the border crisis a “national security nightmare for America.”
The senator stated that to deport individuals who are crossing the border, negotiators want to request that the Biden administration begin utilizing Title 42, a pandemic-era law that has since expired and permitted officials to quickly turn away migrants at the border. He also threatened to deport a large number of immigrants if former President Donald Trump was to be reelected.
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Mexican officials will come to Washington to talk about the border further.
CNN earlier reported that Mexican authorities will meet with Biden administration officials in Washington in January to continue talking about reducing the number of migrants entering the US.
The visit will take place following some success in strengthening enforcement on the Mexican side of the border by a high-level group that included Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
According to a National Security Council spokesman, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president of Mexico, “has taken significant new enforcement actions” addressing migration, and the trip was “productive.”
There has been a sharp increase in the number of migrants entering the US from the south. Preliminary Homeland Security data obtained by CNN show that in December, border officials saw over 225,000 migrants along the US-Mexico border, the largest monthly number since 2000.