Where there’s a will, there’s a way. That seems to be the sentiment when transporting or housing migrants, even if it means breaking a few rules. After New York City Mayor Eric Adams issued an executive order in December last year to try and crackdown on migrant buses flowing into the city, New Jersey became the hotspot for allegedly rogue operators. Exasperation appears to have overwhelmed the mayor as he is now seeking $700 million in damages from bus operators who bring migrants into the not-so welcoming embrace of a once proud sanctuary city.
Busing Migrants into the Garden State
To hear Mayor Adams talk, it seems NYC is under siege. The city is struggling both financially and logistically with the rush to find accommodations for the undocumented. The challenge is real, and it’s only getting worse – and picky migrants who refuse certain shelters or complain about the free food they are given aren’t making things any easier.
But what to do about all the busloads of migrants showing up? Adams signed an executive order stating that charter bus companies must alert the city’s Emergency Management Office 32 hours before arriving in NYC. Furthermore, there is just one drop off location, on West 41st Street, and all arrivals must happen between 8:30 a.m. and 12 p.m. During a virtual press conference with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, Adams said: “We cannot allow buses with people needing our help to arrive without warning any hour of day and night.” He added that it prevents the city from providing assistance in an orderly way and “puts those who have already suffered so much in danger.”
However, nothing was said about trains, so some creative operatives have been busing migrants into New Jersey, where the passengers then board trains bound for the Big Apple without any announcement of their arrivals. Officials found out that four buses with immigrants headed to New York City arrived at the Secaucus Junction train station in New Jersey over the last weekend. “From what we understand, after being dropped at the train station the migrants then took trains to New York City,” Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli said in a statement.
According to the New York Post, over the holiday weekend through January 3, 23 busses dropped off 1,017 immigrants in New Jersey, with 953 of them boarding trains into Manhattan and the rest going elsewhere. Officials in New Jersey are not too happy about this new development. Secaucus Town Administrator Gary Jeffas told The Post that sending migrants to the Garden State just doesn’t make sense. “For us here, any bus traveling into the train station, how do we know when they will be here so we could even have people there to turn them away?”
Although New Jersey Transit police showed up to help the undocumented board trains to New York, the problem is growing out of control. Sam Joshi, mayor of Edison, NJ, said on a morning interview on Good Day New York that he has a charter bus on standby to send the migrants back to the border. “Edison does not have the ability or financial means to support migrants, and I can’t be any more clear that I am the son of immigrants,” he said.
Joshi mentioned one incident in which a bus stopped at the Edison Transit station assuming it ran 24/7, according to Fox 5. There was an interaction with police and the bus operator ended up leaving. “They said that they were hired by the government, and then they proceeded to say that they were hired by the Texas governor,” Joshi explained.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has sent more than 80,000 migrants to Democrat-led cities since last year, including New York City, which has become an overwhelming issue to the Adams administration. More than 161,000 immigrants have gone to the five boroughs since spring 2022, and more than 68,000 of them remain in city care according to officials.
Adams and the other mayors on the recent virtual press conference argued that the government needs to take action against Abbott. “I’m proud to be here with my fellow mayors to call on the federal government to do their part with one voice and to tell Texas Governor Abbott to stop the games and use of migrants as potential as political pawns,” Adams said.
Recently, Abbott said online that he had sent 95,000 asylum seekers north, which includes 33,600 to New York since August 2022, and promised he would continue to do so. “Sanctuary cities like NYC & Chicago have seen only a FRACTION of what overwhelmed Texas border towns face daily,” he posted on X. “We will continue our transportation mission until [President] Biden reverses course on his open border policies.”
Adams’ executive order regarding charter buses offers a penalty to companies that don’t comply, including facing a class B misdemeanor, which could lead to a fine of up to $2,000 and up to three months in jail. To avoid criminal charges, these transit companies need alternative methods of getting their undocumented passengers to the Big Apple. For now, that means redirecting the flow to the Garden State. It’s all one big and tragic irony – a sanctuary state flooded with illegal aliens to whom another sanctuary state doesn’t want to give sanctuary.
