Hours before the grace period expired on New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ executive order requiring notice before migrant-filled buses arrive from Texas, more buses arrived.
Adams announced Wednesday that charter bus companies needed to provide 32-hours notice that they were arriving in New York City with buses of migrants from Texas. The executive order also limits the time buses can arrive to 8:30 a.m. and 12 p.m. Monday through Friday, as well as the locations where migrants can be dropped off.
Early Friday morning, six buses arrived in New York City, according to WABC-TV. No action was taken against the owners of the buses that arrived Friday, as it was still under the grace period. However, NYC’s chief counsel Lisa Zornberg told WNYW-TV that the administration would soon enforce the order.
“Those who knowingly violate it do so at their own peril,” Zornberg said. “The NYPD has a variety of tools at their disposal, including seizure of evidence and impounding of evidence, but this is going to be treated like any other law.”
The executive order was a response to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s policy of sending busloads of migrants to sanctuary cities.
“Last week, 14 rogue buses from the State of Texas arrived in a single night, the highest number recorded by the Arrival Center,” an Adams spokesperson told WABC-TV Wednesday. Abbott boasted in October that the state has sent more than 50,000 migrants to cities from Texas. Over 7,200 migrants arrived in New York City in the last two weeks, according to WNYW-TV.
Adams’ executive order was announced in a joint video call with the majors of Denver and Chicago. Those cities have also been targeted by Abbott’s busing policy.
“We cannot allow buses with people needing our help to arrive without warning at any hour of day and night,” Adams said during that press call. “To be clear, this is not stopping people from coming, but about ensuring the safety of migrants and making sure they can arrive in a coordinated and orderly way.”
“We really are saying to bus operators and companies, ‘Do not participate in Governor Abbott’s actions,’” Adams added. “We want them to take the appropriate actions of being responsible.”
After Adams accused Abbott in the call of treating migrants as “political pawns,” an Abbott spokesperson said Adams was doing the same thing.
“The sheer hypocrisy of these Democrat mayors knows no bounds,” Renae Eze, Abbott’s director of communications, told the Houston Chronicle.