How travel companies busing immigrants are outsmarting Democratic mayors’ rules
Rachel Schilke
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Travel agencies are finding loopholes to continue busing in immigrants who have entered the country illegally after several Democratic-led cities imposed tight restrictions on immigrant drop-offs as a way to staunch the influx from the southern border.
Chicago, New York City, and Denver are among several cities receiving busloads of immigrants courtesy of Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), who began the busing initiative in April 2022 in response to the unprecedented number of illegal border crossings. As the cities’ mayors claim they have almost reached maximum capacity, the administrations have cracked down on bus drop-off times, limiting them to a small window and threatening to fine or sue companies that drop off homeless immigrants.
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To circumvent these rules, bus companies have been dropping immigrants off in the suburbs so they can board transit systems into the city. Now the agencies are going so far as to travel across state lines just to drop them off in the intended city.
Mayor Michael Gonnelli of Secaucus, New Jersey, said on Sunday that buses of immigrants intended for New York City have been stopping at the train station in his town and others to evade an executive order from New York Mayor Eric Adams that regulates how and when immigrants may be dropped off. Gonnelli said Secaucus town officials and law enforcement were alerted to four buses that were believed to have arrived and dropped off immigrants at Secaucus Junction, who then boarded a train for New York.
“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 in a statement. He added that New York City’s restrictions may be “too stringent” and result in “unexpected consequences.”
Adams passed an ordinance on Wednesday that requires buses to arrive between 8:30 a.m. and noon on weekdays at a single drop-off site. Gonnelli said the executive order also requires bus operators to provide at least 32 hours of advance notice of arrivals to limit the hours to drop-off times.
“We cannot allow buses with people needing our help to arrive without warning at any hour of day and night,” Adams said during a virtual news conference with other mayors last week.
A message on Jersey City’s account on X (the website formerly known as Twitter) indicated that approximately 10 buses from Texas and one from Louisiana arrived at various town junctions throughout the state, with about 397 immigrants arriving since Saturday.
This is the latest incident of agencies looking to bypass city rules for drop-offs, with several administrations blasting Abbott for using immigrants as “political pawns.” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said on Sunday that the influx of immigrants at the southern border is an international and federal crisis being loaded onto local governments, criticizing Abbott for his efforts to “sow seeds of chaos.”
More than 14,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally are living in 27 city shelters in Chicago, with more than 26,000 having arrived in the Windy City since August 2022. In Denver, more than 35,000 illegal immigrants have arrived within the last year. More than 161,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in New York and sought aid since spring 2022.
In Chicago, buses must drop off during approved weekday hours, with city officials designating a specific drop-off zone in Chicago’s West Loop and limiting arrivals to two per hour. The Windy City is suing bus companies and approved penalties on Dec. 13 to impound buses and fine owners $3,000 if they do not follow Chicago’s rules limiting the time and frequency of arrivals.
To circumvent these rules, bus companies have been unloading the immigrants, who are mostly homeless, in Illinois suburbs such as Naperville and Oak Park. The villages of Schaumburg, Illinois, and Elk Grove, Illinois, have passed ordinances preventing illegal immigrants from being housed in hotels, and Oak Park recently began evicting 150 immigrants from a town hotel and YMCA.
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Both Johnson and Johnston said they have communicated to the White House about what their cities need to handle the rising number of illegal immigrants, with the Denver mayor saying that he thinks this is a “solvable problem.”
Cities need “a coordinated entry plan where it’s not just the governor of Texas deciding what cities to send people to, but it’s actually the way we’ve welcomed asylees in this country for years,” Johnston said.