East Bay Times

Hundreds of migrants are dropped off in New Jersey

- By Stefanos Chen and Jeffery C. Mays

Hundreds of migrants bound for New York City were taken to New Jersey over the holiday weekend, in an apparent attempt to bypass a city order that seeks to limit the chaotic flow of arrivals.

Since Saturday, 13 buses from Texas and Louisiana carrying about 450 migrants have arrived in New Jersey, including a bus that arrived early Monday in Jersey City, according to Steve Fulop, the city's mayor. Other stops included New Jersey Transit hubs in Secaucus, Fanwood, Edison and Trenton.

The surge in New Jersey arrivals appears to be an end-run around an emergency executive order last week by New York City's mayor, Eric Adams, requiring charter bus companies to provide 32 hours' advance notice of the arrival of migrants and restrictin­g the times of day when they can be dropped off.

“They're using New Jersey essentiall­y as a bus stop to circumvent the limits on buses that can arrive in New York,” Fulop said, adding that he is not yet concerned about the migrants' passage through the state.

The buses — mostly from Texas, but at least one from Louisiana — had chaperones who assisted migrants in transferri­ng to trains and buses heading into New York City. The office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did not immediatel­y respond to a request for comment.

A spokespers­on for the governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, said that while one of the bus companies was based in the state, the migrants aboard the bus came from Texas, and that their office was not involved.

A spokespers­on for New Jersey's governor, Philip Murphy, also a Democrat, said “nearly all” of the asylum-seekers arriving by bus had “continued with their travels en route to their final destinatio­n of New York City.” The spokespers­on, Tyler Jones, added that the state was “closely coordinati­ng” with local New Jersey officials, the federal government and New York City.

Adams signed his order last week to bring more structure to the process of buses dropping off migrants near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan at odd hours and without notice. Adams has said the city was being destroyed by the migrant crisis. Since the spring of 2022, New York City has processed more than 161,500 asylum-seekers, 68,000 of whom are in shelter and under the city's care. New York City is required by court decree to provide shelter to those who ask.

Fourteen buses from Texas arrived in one day the week before last, a record since the city began processing large numbers of migrants who had been sent by Abbott.

Texas has sent migrants to cities run by Democrats in an effort to bring attention to the difficulti­es of states on the southern border and to force President Joe Biden to “secure the border,” the governor's office has said. Abbott, a Republican, said he had sent 25,000 migrants to New York City.

“Texas Governor Greg Abbott continues to treat asylum-seekers like political pawns, and is instead now dropping families off in surroundin­g cities and states in the cold, dark of night with train tickets to travel to New York City, just like he has been doing in Chicago,” Kayla Mamelak, a spokespers­on for Adams, said in a statement.

Adams said his executive order was modeled after laws in Chicago that placed limits on when and where migrants could be dropped off. Chicago officials said that in response to the restrictio­ns, buses from Texas began dropping migrants off at O'Hare Internatio­nal Airport, on “random streets” and in neighborin­g suburbs.

Under Adams' executive order, buses could only arrive Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to noon, and the drivers had to have manifests describing which passengers had arrived in the country in the last 90 days, how many might seek emergency shelter, and whether passengers were traveling as single adults or as part of a family.

 ?? BRYAN ANSELM — THE NEW YORK TIMES ?? Hundreds of migrants sent mostly from Texas, arrived at train stops outside New York City over the weekend to sidestep a new order limiting their arrival.
BRYAN ANSELM — THE NEW YORK TIMES Hundreds of migrants sent mostly from Texas, arrived at train stops outside New York City over the weekend to sidestep a new order limiting their arrival.

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