NYC Starts Offering Illegal Immigrants One-Way Plane Tickets out of Town

New York Mayor Eric Adams speaks at a press conference during his trip to Ecuador, on Oct. 6, 2023. Rodrigo Buendia/AFP via Getty Images

New York City has started giving out one-way airplane tickets to illegal immigrants who wish to leave, a move denounced by progressive politicians as “human trafficking” and “un-American” when carried out by Republican governors of border states on the frontlines of the illegal immigration crisis.

The city, struggling to house and care for more than 130,000 illegal immigrants who arrived since last April, is now directing those ejected from their shelters to a “reticketing center,” established for the sole purpose of arranging their transportation out of New York.

“Attention: this is a reticketing hub! This is not a respite site or shelter,” a multilingual notice at the newly opened center in the East Village reads. “There are no beds at this site. We are here to help you get transportation to any state, or country, of your convenience.”

“When people come across the border, we have 108,000 cities and villages,” Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, said Thursday in defense of the “reticketing” strategy. “We should spread them out across the entire country, and not just New York, Chicago, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston.”

Big Apple at Full Capacity

The move comes as  Mr. Adams declared that his city has officially run out of indoor shelter space to house illegal immigrants, who are arriving at a rate of 2,500 to 4,000 each week. It also comes after the city’s fire department conducted a sweeping safety inspection and closed multiple shelters due to potential fire hazardous.

“With no sign of a decompression strategy in the near future, we have established a reticketing center for migrants,” Kayla Mamelak, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office, said in a statement.

“Here, the city will redouble efforts to purchase tickets for migrants to help them take the next steps in their journeys, and it helps us triage operations at The Roosevelt [Hotel] for new arrivals.”

Some people have taken up the city’s offer and booked plane tickets as far away as Colombia and Morocco, according to a report by Politico.

The Adams administration previously said the city was paying hotels in Manhattan to take in illegal immigrants at an average price of $185 per night per room. By comparison, a one-way flight from New York City to Bogotá and Casablanca would cost about 150 and 400, respectively.

Speaking on Tuesday at his weekly briefing, Mr. Adams said they are “coming faster than leaving,” and that he is exploring all options, including potentially setting up tent cities in public parks, to avoid a “city‑wide visual state of chaos.”

“It’s not ‘if’ people will be sleeping on the streets, it’s when,” said the mayor. “We are at full capacity.”

Democrats Furious Over Busing of Illegals to Blue Cities

Not to long ago, Democrats and progressive activists heavily criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott when he employed a similar transportation tactic in an effort to ease the pressure the dramatic increase in illegal border crossings had on communities along the border. They went so far as to accuse the Republican governor of engaging in “human trafficking” and “kidnapping,” although there was no proof that any of those passengers was put on buses or planes unwillingly.

According to the most recent report from Mr. Abbott’s office, the past 18 months have seen more than 40,000 people being transported out of Texas and into Democrat-led “sanctuary” cities after they illegally entered the United States. This include over 11,900 illegal immigrants to Washington over 14,800 to New York City, over 8,700 to Chicago, over 3,000 to Philadelphia, over 1,500 to Denver, and over 610 to Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came under fire this summer when he chartered private jets to fly illegals to California, a self-designated “sanctuary state.” After a second planeload of illegal immigrants landed in Sacramento, California, Gov. Newsom furiously denounced the Republican as a “small, pathetic man” and threatened him with kidnapping charges.

The Republican governors’ handling of the illegal immigrants pouring into their states also drew criticism from President Joe Biden, who characterized such behavior as “inhumane” “un-American.”

“Instead of working with us on solutions, Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props,” the president said at a September 2022 event, hours after dozens of migrants arrived in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and others were dropped off outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington, D.C.

“What they’re doing is simply wrong. It’s un-American, it’s reckless,” he said.

‘Catastrophic Consequences’

Last month, Mr. Abbott posted on X shared a letter he had sent to President Biden in November 2022, accusing him of inaction in the face of what was then already a border crisis in full swing.

“Your inaction has led to catastrophic consequences,” Mr. Abbott wrote in the letter.

“Under your watch, America is suffering the highest volume of illegal immigration in the history of our country.”

At the time that Mr. Abbott wrote the letter, data showed that more than 2 million people had tried to enter the United States illegally during the prior 12 months.

“Texans are paying a price for your failure,” Mr. Abbott wrote, saying that ranches were being “ripped apart” and homes were made “vulnerable to intrusion.”

Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.