Texas Governor Greg Abbott is being accused of deliberately targeting cities run by Black mayors in his efforts to bus migrants out of his state as a political move against the Biden administration's immigration policies.
In a Monday tweet, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who is Black, said it's "impossible" to ignore the fact that Abbott's busing strategy is aimed at New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver and Washington, D.C., because they're "run by Black mayors."
"Put plainly, Abbott is using this crisis to hurt Black-run cities," Adams said. Over the weekend, the mayor said, he learned that Abbott planned to resume busing migrants up north.
Michael Hancock has been the mayor of Denver since 2011, Mayor Muriel Bowser won reelection in D.C. last November, and Karen Bass began her tenure as mayor of Los Angeles in January. Outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot is still running Chicago until Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson is sworn in later this month. Hancock, Bowser, Bass, Lightfoot and Johnson are all Black.
It's been nearly a year since Abbott first began directing state officials to transport migrants to Democratic-led cities in an effort to get President Joe Biden's attention about the record number of asylum seekers who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in the past two years. Since busing the first group of migrants to Washington, D.C., on April 6, 2022, Abbott has also targeted other cities, like New York City and Chicago.
On Tuesday, Abbott's press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, denied Adams' accusations and accused the mayor of "spreading falsehoods and outright lies."
"[Adams] knows full well these migrants willingly chose to go to New York City, since his staff saw firsthand on their secret trip to Texas last year as migrants raised their hands to go on buses to his sanctuary city," Mahaleris told Newsweek.
The influx of migrants arriving at Abbott's direction has strained resources in a number of metropolitan areas. New York City is on track to spend over $4 billion between 2023 and 2024 to shelter the over 30,000 migrants that have arrived, according to the city comptroller's office.
"Last year, Abbott bused migrants to New York against their will, reportedly had security guards hold them hostage on buses when they tried to get off in other cities, shipped them off while sick and COVID-positive and tagged individuals with barcodes," Adams said. "Despite Abbott's inhumane actions, New York City will continue to do all it can to handle this influx, but this crisis is more than one city can handle."
On Tuesday, Mahaleris defended the governor's decision to continue sending migrants north, saying that Democratic mayors like Adams were "proud to tout their self-declared sanctuary city status" until Texas began busing migrants to their cities.
"With millions of residents, New York is only dealing with a fraction of what our small border communities deal with on a day-to-day basis," Mahaleris said. "The real crisis isn't in New York City—it's on our southern border."
While Mahaleris said that Adams was right that the federal government should step in to provide relief amid the surge in migrants on the border, he criticized the mayor for not ramping up pressure on the Biden administration to take action on the border itself.
On Sunday, Lightfoot wrote a letter to Abbott criticizing his plans to deliver more people to their cities.
"Your lack of consideration or coordination in an attempt to cause chaos and score political points has resulted in a critical tipping point in our ability to receive individuals and families in a safe, orderly, and dignified way," Lightfoot wrote.
Abbott has said that he will continue to send migrants to other cities until the federal government does something to address the situation at the border. Although Texas is not the only state to see an increase in migrant encounters across the border, some Texas towns, like El Paso, have witnessed a 130 percent spike since last year.
Responding this past December to criticisms over the decision to bus migrants to Washington, D.C., Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze called Democratic complaints "hypocritical" and the ongoing situation at the border "a Biden-made crisis."
Lightfoot said while she was sympathetic to the challenges that border states are facing, she said the immigration crisis is not a state versus state or city versus city problem but a "national challenge that requires national collaboration."
"Treat these individuals with the respect and dignity that they deserve," she wrote to the Texas governor. "To tell them to go to Chicago or to inhumanely bus them here is an inviable and misleading choice."
Speaking to CNN's This Morning on Monday, Lightfoot responded to critics who said she lost her bid for reelection because she was a "divisive leader" with "a series of personality conflicts." She said her identity as Chicago's first Black female mayor contributed greatly to the ways in which she was perceived by the public.
"Oftentimes in the narrative, the focus on women, in particular Black women, is about personalities and how we govern, how we present ourselves," Lightfoot said. She added that there's little focus on the actual policies she worked to accomplish.
"Every woman in leadership, every woman who dares say 'I have something to say. I want to lead. I want to contribute back,' faces the same thing," she said. "We've just got to put that aside and look at the facts and the substance of what has been accomplished."
Update, 05/02/23, 10:47 a.m. ET: This story was updated with comments from Governor Abbott's press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris.
