WASHINGTON — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott boasts he has bused tens of thousands of migrants from Texas to major cities across the nation. The effort serves as a protest against President Joe Biden’s border policies and an attempt to shift the cost of caring for people who entered the U.S. unlawfully. The busing, though, has all but ended in recent weeks.
When Abbott started busing migrants to Denver last year, city officials there told Spectrum News they were struggling to keep up with the number of new arrivals.
“We were not going to let families sleep on our streets,” said Jon Ewing, spokesperson for Denver’s Newcomer Program. “That, to us, was a red line.”
The city helped with shelter, food, as well as medical and transportation services. “It was stressing every system. We were out of shelter space. We were out of staff to staff the shelters. We were blowing through cash,” Ewing said.
According to Abbott’s office, since April 2022 Texas has sent more than 119,000 migrants to New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles.
“We have continued busing migrants to sanctuary cities across the entire country, and those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border,” Abbott said at the main stage of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
But recently, those buses have not been leaving the station.
Texas sent more than 19,200 migrants on buses to Denver. Denver officials say the last bus arrived in June.
“We have not received a bus in more than two months,” Ewing said. “Right now, there’s zero people in our shelter. At our height, we had nearly 5000 people in shelter, and people arriving every single day.”
Los Angeles officials tell Spectrum News the last bus of migrants from Texas arrived in January. Just 18 people were on board.
The mayor’s office in New York City says no migrants have been sent to either New York or New Jersey since late June.
No migrant bus arrived in Washington, D.C. this year and the last known time a bus arrived from Texas was in October 2023, according to local officials in the nation’s capital.
The change corresponds to Biden’s executive order in June restricting asylum at the southern border. Unlawful border crossings fell in July to the lowest level in four years. Abbott’s office is also taking credit, citing actions his office has taken to reduce illegal crossings. In a statement to Spectrum News, Abbott’s press secretary said, “Texas has decreased illegal crossings into the state by over 85% thanks to our historic border mission, while in other border states crossings are up. Fewer illegal crossings into Texas means there are fewer buses departing for sanctuary cities.”
Denise Gilman, co-director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin, said there are multiple factors that contribute to the decrease in apprehensions at the southern border, beyond the actions of the federal and local governments. She pointed to seasonal changes in migration, as well as increased immigration enforcement actions by the Mexican government.
“I don’t really think that it makes sense for politicians to be claiming victory based on any particular policy choices in connection with lower border crossings recently,” Gilman told Spectrum News. “Just given how many people are seeking protection in the United States in 2024, I just expect that we won’t see a long-lasting effect.”
Abbott’s administration has already spent $11 billion on his border security initiative, Operation Lone Star. The state is vowing to keep up that effort even as the number of illegal crossings falls.