El Paso Sends Thousands Of Immigrants To Sanctuary Cities In New Round Of Bussing

 El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat, has shipped nearly 180 busloads of migrants to sanctuary cities in less than a month since the city restarted its bussing program in September.

The city has moved more than 7,700 immigrants from the border town to Chicago, Denver, and New York City on 178 charter busses, according to the Daily Mail. Those immigrants are in addition to tens of thousands of others who have traveled to those cities on their own and through other bussing programs.

Texas’ bussing program has been denounced by leaders in the recipient cities as “inhumane” and “un-American.” New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has said that the number of immigrants from the southern border now staying in the city is threatening to break the city’s welfare system. New York City has already, at times, failed to abide by its legal obligation to provide shelter for all homeless staying within the city.

“Not only is this behavior morally bankrupt and devoid of any concern for the well-being of asylum seekers, but it is also impossible to ignore the fact that [Texas Governor Greg Abbott] is now targeting five cities run by Black mayors. Put plainly, Abbott is using this crisis to hurt Black-run cities,” Adams said in a statement in May.

El Paso’s Democratic leadership has evaded criticism from the Democrat-run sanctuary cities. Leeser’s office suggested that the lack of criticism directed at the mayor is due to El Paso working with the officials of recipient cities before the buses are loaded and sent.

“We will continue conversations with [Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson] and his team to ensure a coordinated and collaborative response among our cities to the humanitarian crisis we are facing,” Lesser chief of staff Estrella Escobar said, according to the Daily Mail.

Chicago Alderman Will Hall said of Leeser’s understanding about the impact of the immigration crisis on the city, “he gets it.”

“What we have shared with the mayor of El Paso is that there is no more room in Chicago. He gets it. What we have expressed is for whatever partners they have in Texas to help us in Chicago, which he is assigning now, and we started the conversations with the not-for-profits here to help us,” Hall told ABC 7.

Texas has bussed over 58,000 immigrants, many of whom entered the United States illegally, to Democrat-run cities across the country. Abbott posted the latest numbers on the bussing program, part of his border security initiative Operation Lone Star, on Wednesday.

Abbott estimated that Texas had bussed over 12,500 immigrants to Washington, D.C., over 20,800 to New York City, over 16,100 to Chicago, over 3,200 to Philadelphia, over 4,400 to Denver, and over 1,000 to Los Angeles.