Texas sent a plane with nearly 200 immigrants to New York on Tuesday night, but due to bad weather the flight was diverted to Philadelphia.
This is a second shipment of immigrants by plane sent by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in his escalation against the immigration policies implemented by Joe Biden’s government. The previous flight took place on December 21 with more than 120 migrants on board from the border to Chicago.
The Eastern Airlines flight diverted to Philadelphia on Tuesday was originally destined for New York’s JFK International Airport, said Laila Sadat, a spokeswoman for the city and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney.
Sadat added that some or all of the passengers on board were migrants and are “working to help them reach their final destination.”
For his part, New York Mayor Eric Adams commented: “Governor Abbott has made it clear that he wants to destabilize cities and send thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers here to the city.”
Texas continues to toughen its anti-immigration policy
As part of his Operation Lone Star, Abbott has sent more than 80,000 migrants on free trips to cities with Democratic governments in different parts of the country since last year. More than 23,000 migrants have been sent by bus from Texas to Chicago alone.
A week ago, Texas sent a flight from El Paso to Chicago a day after Abbott signed a law that allows police to detain migrants who cross the border illegally, intensifying a series of aggressive measures implemented by the state in protest of the Biden’s immigration policies.
Given the arrival of buses with immigrants from Texas, the Chicago City Council took measures to sanction transportation operators who do not fill out the documents required by the city or do not leave passengers at a designated arrival point.
Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said Wednesday that the flights were a result of Johnson’s crackdown on buses carrying migrants sent from Texas.
“Until President Biden steps up and does his job to secure the border, Texas will continue to take historic steps to help our local partners respond to this Biden-manufactured crisis,” Mahaleris said.
The White House criticized last week’s flight and accused Abbott of using the migrants for political purposes.
“Once again, Governor Abbott is demonstrating how little consideration or respect he has for human beings,” White House spokesman Angelo Fernández Hernández said in a statement. “His most recent political maneuver adds to a list of extreme measures that seek to demonize and dehumanize people.”
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2023-12-27 13:41:00
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