Texas Sends Three Immigrant Buses – NBC4 New York

What you should know:

• A hundred immigrants, most of them Venezuelans, arrived in Manhattan on buses from Texas as the crisis of congested shelters and lack of resources in New York increases.
• After a war of words between Texas and New York City officials, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on August 5 that his state would begin transporting asylum seekers directly here; the first bus arrived that morning. More have come since then.
• New York City’s right to housing laws force the city to take care of migrants, even though many are being sent to the city with wrong documents that send them to the wrong places.

—

NEW YORK – A hundred immigrants, most of them Venezuelans, arrived on Wednesday morning at the Central Bus Station in New York, sent from Texas, on trips organized by the Government of that state, which has expressly declared that it wants thus sharing the burden represented by migratory pressure.

According to sources from the New York City Hall, displaced to the station to set up an urgent reception device, there have been three buses that arrived on Wednesday, which have completed their trip after three days of travel from the Texas border with Mexico to New York.

The mayor’s office, with the assistance of non-governmental organizations, gave them a box of food and distributed them in shelters -families on the one hand and single men, who are the majority on the other- throughout the city, except for those who expressed their desire to go to the house of friends or relatives.

Roger, a 42-year-old Venezuelan, a tailor by profession, told Efe that he was not forced at any time to get on the bus, but after three months of hardship since he left his country “crossing jungles and deserts,” he accepted the proposal. to be transferred free of charge to New York.

Roger, who has traveled his entire journey alone, aspires to make a living as a tailor in the Big Apple, but is willing to “take any job” to get ahead.

the mayor of New York has stated on numerous occasions that the city will provide lodging undocumented immigrants as long as they legalize their situation —as it does with all the homeless—, and this argument has been used by the governor of Texas, the Republican Greg Abbot, to send immigrants to New York and Washington, governed by mayors Democrats.

The shipments of emigrants are being made without the slightest coordination at the political level, said municipal sources, and the Texas government, despite being the one that organizes the trips, does not report the number of buses, the emigrants it transports or the state in found (for example, if they have diseases).

New York City officials say Texas also failed to coordinate arrivals on Wednesday, but this time New York City was prepared to offer medical evaluations and other services upon arrival, the New York City Commissioner of Immigration Affairs said. New York, Manuel Castro. It was not immediately clear how many asylum seekers were on the first two buses or if another was still expected to arrive.

The events come amid an ongoing battle between Adams, a Democrat, and Abbott, a Republican, that has been going public since July 19, when the mayor first accused the governor of dumping immigrants into the city.

Abbott denied it at the time, but changed course Friday, saying Texas would now transport asylum seekers directly here. “This is horrible when you think about what the governor, the governor of Texas, is doing,” Adams said at a news conference at the Port Authority Bus Terminal that coincided with the arrival of another bus from the border state. The mayor said that some of the families on the bus did not intend to come to New York and were indeed tricked into getting on buses into the city.

“We are finding that some of the families are on the bus that they wanted to go to other places and were not allowed to do so. They were forced to get on the bus with the understanding that they were going to other places that they wanted to go, and when they tried to explain they were allowed to do so,” the mayor said.

He is now applying for federal assistance with the influx. Officials say Texas did not provide information on Wednesday’s buses.

Adams also criticized Texas for not providing coordination information to New York City, such as when the buses would arrive, how many people were on them or where they intended to go. The mayor said the city has heard rumors that some people are getting off buses early and potentially taking it upon themselves to find their way around New York City.

On Sunday, about 14 people leftn. Because New York City has housing rights laws, the city has an obligation to care for those migrants, no matter how they arrive or in what numbers. While critics say the shelter system is struggling for complex reasons that go far beyond the status of immigrants, the mayor has zeroed in on this issue, repeatedly calling for more federal assistance.

Taxis lined up near the Port Authority Bus Terminal Sunday with signs reading “Solidarity Forever,” waiting to whisk migrants off that bus from Texas to shelters and other locations. A taxi driver said his union received a request from the city asking for their help.

“We are all immigrants,” said taxi driver Mohammad Haque. “We are all, we come from different countries, different backgrounds. This New York City is open to everyone.”

Yet while the shelter system struggles to handle new arrivals, part of the problem is also where those new arrivals go in the first place. As our sister station NBC 4 New York has reported in recent days, perhaps hundreds of people have arrived in New York City in recent weeks with documents bearing wrong or completely false addresses and phone numbers, directing them to a shelter that did not exist and leaving them wandering the streets.

Federal authorities insist that the migrants themselves are providing those bad addresses; aid groups adamantly deny this, saying it’s federal agents and officials who give people the wrong address.

In at least one case now being investigated by federal officials, an asylum seeker was sent to New York City with documents that had a false addressand the officer signed the documents with what appeared to be a hand-drawn emoji of a face sticking its tongue out.

Gary Jenkins, New York City’s social services commissioner, said on July 28 that his department was unaware that immigrants were coming to the city with so many wrong documents until asked about it by News 4.

Meanwhile, the city’s daily census of shelters has recently surpassed 50,000 people per day, which is about 10% more than it used to be in the first part of the year.

Adams said those on the Sunday morning bus who want to stay in New York are being taken to appropriate shelters, while those who want to go elsewhere are getting help from aid groups trying to get there. they are on the bus that arrived, less than half of what the city expected.

On the other hand, the Texas government has imposed a confidentiality contract on the bus companies so that they do not reveal details about these trips, according to sources from the mayor’s office yesterday.

Only some charitable organizations, frequently religious, obtain information “in situ” in Texas from the emigrants themselves and transmit it to New York, and it is through them that the reception device is being organized.

More than 4,000 immigrants are registered with the city’s shelter system, where they have been arriving for a few months, via Washington DC, after Texas also sent buses with undocumented immigrants there.

–