Governor Greg Abbott of Texas’s decision to bus migrants to Los Angeles this week has been decried as a “despicable stunt”, as advocates in California reported that the group was not offered food during the 23-hour trip.
On Wednesday, 42 migrants, including 15 youth and three babies, arrived at Union Station in downtown LA, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, the communications director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights-Los Angeles (Chirla), who met the group when they arrived. The travelers he spoke to came from Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala and Haiti, and one came from China, he said, adding some told him they had been on the bus for nearly a day without any food or drink.
Abbott tweeted that it was the “1st bus of migrants” arriving in LA, claiming Texas border towns “remain overrun & overwhelmed because Biden refuses to secure the border”. Recent reports, however, have found that the number of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border is at its lowest levels since the start of Joe Biden’s presidency. Abbott has faced increasing scrutiny for his bussing program over the last year, which has reportedly sent tens of thousands of migrants to Democratic-run cities, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington.
Immigrants’ rights groups have said the practice can be exploitative and cruel, noting last year that one bus Abbott sent to Philadelphia had a 10-year-old girl on it who had to be hospitalized from dehydration and a high fever. Last month, the governor sent buses to vice-president Kamala Harris’s residence in Washington.
The LA councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said on Thursday several city agencies and non-profits triaged the situation, offering health screenings, mental health care, connections to legal aid, assistance with family reunification and homeless services if needed.
“Our community organizations do this every single day, the only difference here is these migrants were used as a political stunt, transported to our city for political means,” she said. “This action by the governor of Texas is a reflection of how incapable he is of running a state, of meeting a crisis head-on. It’s just really pathetic. But Los Angeles is a place where we value and welcome everyone.”
LA’s mayor, Karen Bass, said in a statement that after she took office last year, she directed city agencies to plan for possible scenarios in which LA “was on the receiving end of a despicable stunt that Republican governors have grown so fond of”.
“This did not catch us off guard, nor will it intimidate us. Now, it’s time to execute our plan. Our emergency management, police, fire and other departments were able to find out about the incoming arrival while the bus was on its way and were already mobilized along with non-profit partners before the bus arrived,” she said.
Advocates in LA transported the group to a nearby church where they were connected with services and, when possible, put in touch with family members. Some have since been transferred to San Diego or northern California, and everyone remaining in LA was getting shelter, Cabrera said. He said the group seemed exhausted but that the children were playing with each other and were well taken care of: “The governor [of Texas] will need to check his heart and his conscience. What we will do is treat migrants like the human beings they are, with dignity and respect. These individuals are seeking safe harbor, and that’s the least we can do.”
At least one migrant told Cabrera he had a court date scheduled in New York, raising concerns about whether California was an appropriate destination for everyone on the bus. “He said, ‘Is New York close by?’” The migrants have been authorized to enter the US, due to findings that they have credible fears, but have not yet been granted asylum, which will be a long process: “This will be an uphill battle for many of these folks who are hugely traumatized. So we cannot add to their trauma by acting unconscionably and cowardly.”
Hernandez said she learned of one hungry toddler who arrived at the church saying he had had no food or drink, but was fed and seemed to be doing well. She also learned of two arrivals who said they had no connections to the state of California.
Tiffany Burrow, the director of operations for the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, based in Texas, said her group helps coordinate transportation for migrants arriving across the US-Mexico border and had reached out in advance to advocates in LA about the arriving bus, but was not involved in the operations of this bus. Texas’s emergency management division would typically coordinate this kind of trip, she said.
Burrow said that while it can be beneficial to offer free transportation that gets migrants out of remote towns and closer to their final destinations, “when politics get in the middle of it, that’s less helpful and makes it more of a challenge”. She added: “It’s important to assess if it’s really truly helping the migrants or not, and the big question here is, was California indeed the final destination for these folks?”
Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, said in an email that the governor launched the “border bus mission” in April 2022 and has since sent 21,000 migrants to cities with sanctuary policies, adding: “Each bus is stocked with food and water and makes stops along the trip to refuel and switch drivers. Migrants are allowed to purchase any needed provisions or disembark at any of these stops, as they have been processed and released by the federal government.” Texas will continue the trips “to provide relief to our overwhelmed border towns”, he said.
Shiu-Ming Cheer, the interim co-executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, which recently pushed for LA to adopt a sanctuary city policy, praised the city’s handling of the migrants: “Los Angeles has telegraphed its strong support for migrants and been on the forefront of making sure migrants who arrive here, and people who’ve been here for decades as immigrants, are really treated compassionately and are able to receive services.”
The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, a Republican running for president, has also faced a backlash for sending migrants to Democratic regions. A sheriff recently recommended criminal charges over a flight he sent to Massachusetts, saying migrants were “lured under false pretenses”. Earlier this month, DeSantis flew asylum seekers to Sacramento, California’s capital, prompting the state attorney general to threaten that Florida officials could be guilty of “state-sanctioned kidnapping”.