With thousands of migrants continuing to pour into New York City—more than 14,700 during the month of December—Mayor Eric Adams, in a desperate attempt to curb the flow of arrivals, issued an Executive Order on Dec. 27, placing strict limitations on charter buses bringing migrants into the city. Under the EO, charter buses must give a 32-hour advance notice of their arrival and must use a single drop-off location in Manhattan between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 12:00 noon, Monday through Friday. Violators are subject to criminal prosecution punishable by a fine of up to $2,000, three months in jail, and buses being impounded. So far, however, Adams’s executive decree has only succeeded in making an already chaotic situation worse while subjecting migrants to increased physical and psychological stress.
In order to circumvent the EO, buses are now dropping migrants off at train stations in various New Jersey suburban towns for the final leg of their journey into Manhattan. Besides causing confusion for migrants, many of whom have no money and do not speak English, this is causing consternation among the town folks outraged to see their local train stations turned into transit hubs for migrants. For example, Edison, New Jersey Mayor Sam Joshi posted on his Facebook page: “I want to be very clear—if any bus, train or plane of illegal migrants come to Edison, I have instructed our law enforcement and emergency management departments to charter a bus to transport the illegal migrants right back to the southern Texas/Mexican border.” (Joshi is a first-generation American whose parents emigrated—legally—from India.) New Jersey Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew is demanding that Gov. Phil Murphy rescind the state’s sanctuary state status, saying, “It is a real concern, because some of [the migrants] obviously are being moved on into New York City and Manhattan, but others may be well staying here. New Jersey’s taxes and New Jersey’s challenges are already enough. We don’t need more.”
Chicago enacted similar measures in early December with similar results—migrants being unloaded in suburban areas surrounding the city. Signs have been placed by some localities along Interstate 55—one of the main thoroughfares into Chicago—which say “NO MIGRANT BUSES THIS EXIT.” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, along with Mayor Adams and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, held a Dec. 27 online press conference to discuss the migration crisis. Besides patting each other on the back for their “leadership,” much of their time was spent attacking Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for his “cruel, inhumane politics” of shipping migrants out of the state. The only solutions offered by the mayors was more money from the federal government—a government already $34 trillion in debt—and a “national resettlement strategy” based on a more fair and equitable distribution of migrants throughout the country.
