6 More Buses of Illegal Immigrants Arrive in New York: Mayor

A bus carrying illegal immigrants sent from Texas arrives at Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York on Aug. 10, 2022. Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images

Six more buses filled with illegal immigrants arrived in New York on Sept. 18, a move that was immediately condemned by Mayor Eric Adams.

Adams, a Democrat, asserted in a CNN interview that Republican governors are engaging in “the erosion of basic human rights” by busing illegal immigrants to other parts of the country, including New York, in recent weeks.

“Well, I think it’s a message for the entire country,” Adams told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sept. 18. “You see, this is their way of covering up what many people have been really concerned about the erosion of basic human rights. We’re seeing crisis calls for coordination.”

In the interview, Adams didn’t mention the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Republicans say that the White House’s shift on immigration has triggered a massive surge in illegal immigration, and they have no choice but to transport the people to other parts of the country.

The administration, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, is the only U.S. entity that has the ability to deport people. Governors don’t have such authority.

After President Joe Biden took office last year, he immediately moved to scrap several key Trump-era immigration rules. They included ending construction of the former president’s signature border wall, reissuing provisions established under the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and rolling back interior immigration enforcement priorities that were implemented by former President Donald Trump.

Adams confirmed to CNN that six more buses filled with illegal immigrants from Texas arrived in the city. The mayor said that the city’s resources are stretched thin and can’t deal with the influx.

“We received a minimum of six buses early this morning. Over 11,000 individuals, asylum-seekers, and migrants have come to the city already,” Adams told Tapper. “It is time for us to coordinate this humanitarian crisis that our country is facing.”

For months, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said that his administration as well as border towns in his state have been overwhelmed by illegal immigrants, adding that Texas doesn’t have the resources to deal with them.

A report issued last month from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) found that in the 18 months since Biden took office, more than 4.9 million illegal aliens—roughly the equivalent of the entire population of Ireland—have crossed into the United States.

“In that time, the Biden administration has blamed an unprecedented surge of illegal immigration on all sorts of external factors, except their own sabotage of our nation’s immigration laws,”  said Dan Stein, the president of FAIR. “The endless flow of illegal aliens and the incursion of lethal narcotics pouring across our border will not end until this administration demonstrates a willingness to enforce our laws.”

Last week, Abbott and fellow Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis made headlines when they transported illegal immigrants to Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence in Washington and also to Martha’s Vineyard.

DeSantis argued that the move to transport the aliens to the Massachusetts island was necessary because Florida isn’t a “sanctuary” state. Hours later, the governor of Massachusetts activated the National Guard and transported the roughly 50 illegal immigrants to a military base on Cape Cod.