Walk the walk: Texas busses migrants to sanctuary cities

Republican governor Greg Abbott has sent over 10,000 illegal migrants to Washington, New York and Chicago.

Migrants who crossed the border from Mexico into Texas exit a bus in Manhattan on August 25. Picture: AFP

The biggest Democrat-run cities in the US, from Seattle to Boston, are bracing for thousands of illegal immigrants to arrive on their doorsteps in coming weeks, as Texas doubles down on a controversial policy of sharing the costs of dealing with the humanitarian crisis on its border with Mexico.

Republican governor of Texas Greg Abbott, determined to elevate border security as a national issue in the lead-up to midterm elections in November, said on Friday (Saturday AEST) his state had bussed more than 10,000 immigrants to Washington, New York and Chicago, prompting a backlash from those cities’ mayors.

“The bussing mission is providing much-needed relief to our overwhelmed border communities,” Mr Abbott said, blaming the surge of people into Texas on “the Biden administration‘s refusal to secure the border”.

“Stay tuned,” a spokesman for the governor told news outlet Axios last week, when asked which cities would be targeted next.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public emergency on Thursday, as charity and city resources in the US capital began to buckle under the strain of more than 7900 arrivals from Texas since April. “We need to ensure our systems in DC are not broken by a crisis that is certainly not of our making,“ she said, describing the response of the Biden administration, which had twice denied her request for help from the National Guard, as “lacking”.

New York has received more than 2200 immigrants since last month, prompting a slanging match between the city’s Democrat Mayor Eric Adams, who sent a “fact-finding” mission to the border last week, and Mr Abbott.

“Adams talked the talk about being a sanctuary city – welcoming illegal immigrants into the Big Apple with warm hospitality,” Mr Abbott wrote in an op-ed in the New York Post.

“ Talk is cheap. When pressed into fulfilling such ill-considered policies, he wants to condemn anyone who is pressing him to walk the walk.”

Washington, New York and Chicago, which has received about 300 immigrants so far, are “sanctuary cities”, implying a readiness to welcome immigrants and asylum seekers.

Chicago’s Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the Texan governor a “a man without any morals, humanity or shame” after the first busload of immigrants arrived in Chicago last month.

“Mayor Lightfoot loves to tout the responsibility of her city to welcome all regardless of legal status,” Mr Abbott said, adding that he looked “to seeing this responsibility in action as these migrants receive resources from a sanctuary city with the capacity to serve them”.

Spokesmen for administrations in Philadelphia, Seattle and Boston said they hadn’t ruled out receiving busloads of immigrants incoming weeks.

Mr Abbott has repeatedly called on the federal government to toughen its immigration rules and bolster its policing on the border to help Texas cope with and deter future immigrants, many of whom are caught with illegal drugs including fentanyl.

In July, the most recent month for which statistics were available, almost 200,000 people were apprehended crossing the southern US border, down from a monthly record of more than 241,000 in May, more than double the level typically experienced during the Trump administration.

Texas has spent more than US$12m ($17.5m) bussing the immigrants, which it says elected to take up the offer of free transport. According to Reuters, about 85 per cent travel onward to other destinations within hours or days.

Immigration remains one of the top political issues in the US in the lead-up to midterm elections, which polls suggest will be close after an improvement in Democrats’ standing over summer.

Border security was the fourth most important issue for voters nationally, according to a Wall Street Journal poll conducted in August, behind the economy, inflation and abortion.