Texas has transported more than 119,000 migrants to Democratic-led cities

The governor of Texas changed immigration policy across the United States via busing.

July 21, 2024. – In two years, Texas has transported more than 119,000 people to cities led by Democrats, changing immigration patterns and the immigration debate. The list of cities continues to grow, Los TIempos de Nueva York reports.

The fall of 2021 was a shock for Texas. On one September day, more than 9,000 migrants crossed the border into the city of Del Rio, crammed into a tent camp under a bridge. Later that week, thousands more arrived from countries around the world, challenging the city’s ability to handle them.

The following spring, Texas struck out on its own frontier. On April 13, a bus carrying 24 migrants, chartered by the state’s emergency management department and riding free from Del Rio, arrived at Union Station in Washington, D.C. More buses arrived in the capital over the next few days.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said many of the migrants were “tricked” into riding the buses by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, which the White House called a “political ploy.”
In the two years since Abbott sent the first buses from Texas, the bus program has become a vital part of the country’s immigrant transportation infrastructure.

The New York Times’ analysis of state records, immigration data collected by Syracuse University and records from destination cities, as well as interviews with dozens of immigrants, city officials and leaders of immigrant organizations, shows that the Texas program is still expanding. New target cities include Boston, Detroit and Albuquerque, and will help reshape the immigration landscape across the United States.

For every five immigrants who had immigration court hearings in New York, Chicago or Denver in the past two years — a clue to where they plan to live — one traveled to those cities on a state-funded bus from Texas.

While Abbott did not create the immigration crisis that peaked late last year, analysis shows he amplified and concentrated it, directing migrants who might have spread slowly from the border to cities and towns across the U.S. into a few places.

“I brought the border to them,” Abbott told a cheering crowd at the Republican National Convention. Drastic restrictions on immigration were a centerpiece of former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign and a frequent theme at the convention. “These buses are going to keep running until we finally secure the border.”

In doing so, he appears to have achieved his stated goal: changing the conversation about immigration in the United States, forcing Democrats to demand better border security and forcing President Biden to reverse many of his promises about more welcoming immigration policies.

“If one of his goals was to draw attention to what’s happening at the border in a way that a lot of inland cities don’t typically see, then, yes, it was a success,” said Camille Joseph Varlack, chief of staff to Mayor Eric Adams of New York.