For some passengers, the 30+ hour bus ride from the Texas border to the East Coast is exhausting and confusing. When they get off the bus in New York City or Washington, DC, they don’t know where to go or what to do next.
For others, a free trip to the Big Apple or the nation’s capital is more than they ever imagined they would get after a long and arduous trek from their home country to the United States.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision to transport thousands of migrants to Washington DC and New York in what he described as an effort to draw attention to a “border crisis” has become increasingly a political flash point. It has also raised legal issues.
While conservatives applaud the move, immigrant rights groups and the mayors of New York City and D.C. say putting people on buses and sending them to other states is a political ploy that exploits and misleads migrants . And organizations working with migrants say they are feeling the strain.
“Ultimately, that’s what the governor is doing. He’s taking these vulnerable communities, arming them and targeting them in DC,” said Abel Nuñez, executive director of the Central American Resource Center in Washington, DC.
Texas began bussing migrants to Washington, DC in April. Then earlier this monthGovernor Gregg Abbott said the state had also begun busing migrants to New York City.
In a recent tweet, New York City Mayor Eric Adams wrote that Abbott “used innocent people as political pawns to create a crisis. New Yorkers are stepping up to fix it — these are the values of our city”.
Faced with the growing number of migrants bussed into her city, DC Mayor Muriel E. Bowser he has asked the National Guard twice for help
Nunez said at least one bus a day comes to DC, sometimes more. The city, he said, is not equipped to handle large numbers of migrants. One of the biggest concerns? Where to accommodate them. The city has a large homeless population and Nuñez is now tasked with finding housing for newly arrived migrants.
This remains a problem even though the number of migrants crossing the border into their city has dropped during the hot summer months.
He said some of the buses do not arrive with the same number of passengers as they left the border. Some migrants end up getting off when their bus stops. A bus may stop in Georgia, for example, and a migrant may have family there. In some cases, Nuñez and others have ended up sending migrants back to Texas after learning they have family there.
Texas isn’t the only state sending migrants to East Coast “sanctuary cities.” Arizona has also been sending buses since April.
Contradictory opinions
Nuñez also wants people to know that the issue of buses is not clear. On the one hand, he does not like that migrants are used by politicians to draw attention to the country’s migration problems. But he’s also heard from a number of migrants who didn’t mind bus rides.
“If the governor is willing to use Texas tax dollars to do that, that’s great. A lot of the immigrants are very grateful, actually,” Nuñez said. “I do not know how [his] The grassroots would feel about it…we have to remember that this is a free ride, a 30-hour bus ride, from Del Rio, Texas to Washington, DC.”
In New York, some advocates have expressed concern after speaking with bus passengers. Mura Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, was a recent guest on The Brian Lehrer Show, which airs on public radio station WYNC.
He said some migrants have complained about not getting their personal belongings back after being released from detention. One person, he added, did not receive his insulin. And another needed medical attention.
“It’s not just that people are being cheated sometimes, it’s also that they’re not being treated humanely and they’re not being given the dignity they deserve,” Awawdeh said.
Awawdeh told Lehrer that border officials have been referring migrants to his group and other organizations on the East Coast. They are also sending important immigration forms to migrants who have not yet arrived in the city, documents that could affect their ability to stay in the US.
“And that’s also a little bit worrisome because that’s where people’s mail is going to go to tell them where their hearing is going to take place, when it’s going to happen, so it’s been a little bit worrying,” he said.
If migrants do not receive their identification information or notice to appear in court, this could affect their chances of being reunited with family or applying for asylum.
Legal issues
Legal experts say what Texas and Arizona are doing isn’t necessarily against the law, but it does raise questions and concerns.
“You can’t grab people off the street and say, ‘I think you’d better be somewhere else,'” said Gabriel Chin, a law professor at the University of California Davis School of Law.
Chin says the three main issues he would address are how migrant transportation interferes with federal policies; how this may violate a person’s rights; and the possible criminal liability of people transporting migrants.
“If it’s voluntary, to the extent that it’s voluntary, it wouldn’t raise this criminal issue,” Chin said. “If these people are arrested and they get out of arrest by voluntarily agreeing to go to D.C. or New York, there’s a question of whether that consent to be transferred is voluntary if it’s based on an arrest.”
KERA News reporter Bret Jaspers contributed to this story.
Do you have a tip? Email Stella M. Chavez at schavez@kera.org. You can follow Stella on Twitter @stellamchavez.
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