Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signaled he will accelerate the busing of illegal immigrants from the border to New York City, a sanctuary city, according to his office.
“Texas is filling the gaps left in [President Joe] Biden’s absence at our border,” the Republican governor wrote on social media. “We’ve made over 19,000 arrests, seized over 335.5 [million] lethal fentanyl doses, [and] sent over 7,400 migrants on buses to DC,” he added.
Two buses carrying about 100 illegal aliens, mostly young men with several women, arrived in New York City this weekend from the Texas border, according to a Fox News reporter.
In a statement released on Friday, Abbott’s office said Texas authorities have sent more than 7,400 illegal immigrants to the District of Colombia. Meanwhile, Abbott has sent a growing number of illegal immigrants to New York City—about 1,500—in the month of August.
“Governor Greg Abbott, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Texas National Guard are continuing to work together to secure the border, stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people into Texas, and prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal behavior between ports of entry,” the statement also said, adding the program, Operation Lone Star, “accelerates” busing of illegals to New York City.
“The busing mission is providing much-needed relief to our overwhelmed border communities,” it added. “Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps left by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border.”
Since Biden took office in January 2021, around 4.9 million people have illegally crossed into the United States from Mexico, according to a report released last week.
Some 2 million illegal aliens have entered the United States in the first 10 months of this fiscal year, data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) show. And in June alone, more than 207,000 illegal immigrants, or the highest figure ever recorded in the month of June, were apprehended attempting to cross.
‘Ideal Destination’
Abbott previously said he decided to send busloads of illegal immigrants to Washington and New York City “because of President Biden’s continued refusal to acknowledge the crisis caused by his open border policies,” adding that he’s forced to take “unprecedented action,” including busing.
“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,” Abbott told media outlets earlier in August.
Both Adams and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, both Democrats, have publicly complained about Abbott’s busing program and have called on the federal government to provide federal support, including National Guard deployments. Both have been denied by the Pentagon.
Manuel Castro, the head of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, recently accused Abbott of “weaponizing asylum seekers.”
“It is shameful, and it is our moral obligation to condemn the use of human beings for political purposes,” he said last week, reported the New York Post.
But Abbott has said that the illegal aliens apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border have gone to New York City and Washington voluntarily.