Posted on September 6, 2022

New York City Officials Line Up to Shake Hands With Migrants After Being Bused In From Texas

Stephen Lepore, Daily Mail, September 4, 2022

Busses of migrants sent to New York City from Texas were welcomed with handshakes and an official escort from members of Mayor Eric Adams’ administration in Manhattan Sunday.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered over a dozen buses of migrants to the Big Apple, Chicago, and Washington DC in an attempt to show them the nature of the crisis at the border.

So far, Texas has forked out nearly $13million to Wynne Transportation – the charter service that is taking migrants to the various cities. Around 44 migrants got off Sunday’s bus, which was ordered to New York by El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser.

Each of the arriving migrants at the city’s Port Authority were greeted with a handshake from a local leader, a blanket and were then escorted to a local hotel.

Manuel Castro, the Director of Adams’ Office of Immigrant Affairs, said: ‘As in previous days, our priority is to make sure that the asylum seekers are well. We have food water medical services inside the port authority.’

And late on Sunday night, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that 50 migrants had also been dropped off in her city.

Castro revealed earlier this week that City Hall has been forced to strike emergency deals with the hotels because the shelter system is overloaded.

Five more buses arrived on Thursday from Texas, carrying migrants relocated by Texas Gov Greg Abbott.

The same number of buses arrived on Wednesday, which was a record number for migrants arriving at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Castro revealed that more than 6,000 migrants have needed help from the city since May, including at least 750 on the buses that Abbott began sending them to New York from Texas.

Two weeks ago City Hall stated that 11 hotels were being used to help ease the pressure, but that has now been upped to 14.

City Hall has also confirmed that they are no longer planning to house 600 families at the luxury The Row hotel near Times Square in NYC which is regularly packed with tourists.

New York City will rent 5,000 hotel rooms to accommodate migrants arriving on buses from Texas in addition to the 1,000 already announced by Mayor Eric Adams.

During a press conference yesterday, Castro also explained that both Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul appealed to officials in other states for help housing the migrants.

However, he did not identify any of the other cities or leaders who have been contacted to assist in the support scheme.

He said: ‘Unlike Gov. Abbott, our mayor and our governor are showing true leadership by actively coordinating with the White House and federal government and governors across the country and mayors across the country to see how we can work together to address the need to resettle asylum-seekers.’

Mayor Adams announced last week that hotels in District Two, where were ‘opening daily and serving as shelters.’

He also said that any children who travel across the border would be integrated into the school system and will receive supplies and backpacks.

Andrea Catsimatidis, chair of the Manhattan Republican Party, said: ‘NYC is looking for an extra 5,000 hotel rooms to house bused in migrants.

‘So now we have illegal immigrants instead of tourists in our hotels. Imagine that impact on our economy, crime, and tax dollars.’

The NYC Hotel Association has said operators are ready to put up thousands of migrants to help the city’s housing problems.

Vijay Dandapani, president of the group representing nearly 300 hotels, likened the migrant crisis to the homeless shelter situation of the pandemic.

He told DailyMail.com: ‘Individual hotels who may or may not be our members could get involved in this, and in the past during the height of the pandemic, we were directly involved in moving people from homeless shelters to hotels.

‘We are there ready again, with our stakeholders in the city to do the necessary thing if that is what asked of us.

‘Everyone is doing this voluntarily it depends on how they view it. You are certainly not going to see the luxury five star hotels participant it but three or four starts as they did during the pandemic, may help as that market has not yet come back to pre-pandemic levels.

‘We ourselves are ready and we have done it in the past and we’ll do it again. It’s a dynamic situation early next week.’

Abbott started moving migrants to DC in April to protest President Biden’s ‘irresponsible open border policies’ before also bussing them into the Big Apple.

Texas has also started making the migrants were bracelets with barcodes on them, before cutting them off when they arrive in New York or their other destinations.

Abbott’s spokesperson said that they are ‘standard protocol’ for voluntary transportation, adding: ‘They have been used during times of natural disasters like hurricanes when needing to transport people to safety.

‘This process also helps ensure we are only transporting migrants who have been processed and released by the federal government with federal documentation that allows them to move about the country.’

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has slammed Texas Governor Greg Abbott as ‘racist’ after he announced last week that he would be bussing illegal migrants to the city.

Lightfoot, a Democrat, attacked the GOP governor despite repeatedly bragging that Chicago is a ‘sanctuary city’, as it witnessed the arrival of 60 people on Wednesday, August 30.

She said: ‘Chicago is a welcoming city and as such has collaborated across various departments and agencies to ensure we greeted them with dignity and respect.

‘As a city we are doing everything we can to ensure these immigrants and their families can received shelter, food and most importantly protection.

‘This is not new; Chicago welcomes hundreds of migrants every year to our city and provides much-needed assistance.

‘Unfortunately, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is without and shame or humanity. But ever since he put these racist practices of expulsion in place, we have been working with our community partners to ready the city to receive these individuals. ‘

Abbott, who is seeking a third term in November’s midterm elections, says the buses are needed because Democratic President Joe Biden has failed to secure the border with Mexico.

U.S. Border Patrol made a record 1.8 million migrant arrests at the southwest border between October 1, 2021, to July 31, 2022.

Abbott’s office has said migrants are transported out of state only with their written permission although it is not clear what other options have been offered to the migrants.