Migrants bused to New Jersey to evade New York restrictions

Hundreds of migrants were dropped off in New Jersey over the weekend to bypass new restrictions recently imposed by New York Mayor Eric Adams aiming to curb the inflow of bused migrants to the city from the US southern border.

Adams issued an executive order last week requiring charter bus companies to provide 32 hours’ advance notice of the arrival of migrants in the city and stipulated that buses can unload migrants only between 8:30 am and 12 pm.

At least four buses transporting migrants to New York arrived at the train station in Secaucus Junction, New Jersey. Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli said in a statement "the migrants then took trains to New York City".

"It seems quite clear the bus operators are finding a way to thwart the requirements of the executive order by dropping migrants at the train station in Secaucus and having them continue to their final destination," Gonnelli said.

The New York Times reported that since Saturday, 13 buses from Texas and Louisiana carrying about 450 migrants have arrived in New Jersey, including Jersey City and Secaucus, Fanwood, Edison and Trenton. The buses had chaperones who assisted migrants to get on trains and buses heading into New York.

Tyler Jones, a spokesperson for New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said the governor’s office has tracked the recent arrival of a handful of buses of migrant families at various New Jersey train stations.

"New Jersey is primarily being used as a transit point for these families — all or nearly all of them continued with their travels en route to their final destination of New York City," Jones said.

"Texas Governor Greg Abbott continues to treat asylum seekers like political pawns and is instead now dropping families off in surrounding cities and states in the cold, dark of night with train tickets to travel to New York City, just like he has been doing in Chicago," Kayla Mamelak, a spokeswoman for Adams, said in a statement.

However, migrants bused to New York City accounted for only a small portion of the total number of migrants arriving in the city. According to numbers provided by Abbott’s office, Texas sent more than 28,700 migrants to New York City in 2023 (a total of 33,600 since August 2022, when the practice first started). New York City has processed more than 161,500 asylum seekers in 2023, the Times reported.

Abbott’s busing of migrants to a few Democratic-dominant cities has received wide criticism at first. However, the public’s opinion has shifted somewhat since the program started in April 2022.

The top-voted comment by an anonymous reader to the Times reads: "Honestly, if NYC does not have the infrastructure to deal with this influx, how can the feds expect the small border towns to cope? As much as I detest Abbott, at least, this political stunt is keeping the crisis front and center and forcing the federal hand via NYC to some extent. This situation at the border is unsustainable and the more people on both sides of the aisle that realize this simple fact, the better."

A self-claimed "lifelong Democrat and liberal" reader named JD said that "the GOP/Texas ilk are 100 percent on point with respect to our insane and untenable southern border. It makes political and practical sense what the loathsome Texas governor is doing on the border." JD wrote. "Secure it. Build a wall if necessary. Deport. Disincentivize. Stop the madness. Ask questions later."

A record 2.47 million migrants crossed the Mexico-US border in 2023, and in December, a record of more than 10,000 migrants crossed in a single day.