Texas marks year of success with busing; sanctuaries reach new limits as crisis hits home

When Gov. Greg Abbott announced that his first busload of 30 or so migrants, plucked from the streets of Texas, had reached the nation’s capital last year, he faced a wall of criticism.

Some on the right worried that he was wasting taxpayer money on illegal immigrants. The White House derided the busing as unhelpful and ineffective, and immigration rights advocates complained that it was a dirty trick that treated the migrants as political pawns.

A year on, those on the right are celebrating Mr. Abbott’s decision as a watershed moment in the immigration debate. Leaders on the left have paid the governor the most sincere form of flattery by mounting their own busing campaigns.

Among them is New York City, one of the destinations for Mr. Abbott’s buses. The city has begun paying for bus tickets to get migrants out of town and make them someone else’s problem.

Mr. Abbott, a Republican, said his goal of busing was to share the pain, particularly with “sanctuary” cities that limited their cooperation with immigration authorities and pronounced themselves welcoming to those in the U.S. illegally. His state was facing an unprecedented crush of illegal immigrants under President Biden’s policies.

It turned out that the sanctuaries’ welcome had limits, and Mr. Abbott’s busing campaign found them.

Leaders in Chicago, New York and the District of Columbia — all destinations for Mr. Abbott’s buses — were soon using words such as “crisis” to describe the trickle of newcomers.

“It’s pretty clear it had the desired effect, which was to light a fire under the Democrats to do something about the border,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “Now, they haven’t done as much as I’d like, but there’s no question Democratic mayors complained to the White House and demanded some changes.”

The first migrants arrived at Union Station in the District on April 13, a Wednesday.

The location was chosen because it was close to the Capitol, so members of Congress could get a close-up look at the situation. Congress happened to be on spring break, but members would get plenty of other chances to see migrants.

As of the latest public accounting, in mid-February, Mr. Abbott’s office said more than 9,100 migrants had been bused to the District. Another 5,200 were sent to New York City, 1,500 to Chicago and 890 to Philadelphia.

The pace has slowed this year.

The governor’s office didn’t respond to inquiries for this report, but one reason for the slowdown could be that fewer migrants are arriving in Texas.

The Biden administration announced a policy in early January to siphon some illegal border crossings into a more orderly process by appointment. Through the first two months of the year, it was working. Illegal immigrants are still showing up but in somewhat smaller numbers.

Analysts said Mr. Abbott’s busing can take at least some credit for Mr. Biden’s change.

“Obviously, Abbott tapped into something and got a rise out of the administration,” Mr. Krikorian said. “It’s been a rousing success, so long as you didn’t think somehow the Biden administration was going to completely change its take on immigration.”

Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, said she had some compassion for Texas but warned officials not to forget about the migrants’ situations.

They are chiefly Venezuelans, but also Nicaraguans, Cubans, Haitians and others fleeing authoritarian governments or countries in chaos — the sorts of folks who needed orderly welcomes. Instead, she said, they got disorder, with Texas sending them to other communities without any coordination for housing, job assistance or other accommodations.

“It’s not the mayor or the governor of that receiving place who feels the pain; it’s those individuals, who are already vulnerable,” Ms. Murray said. “If he had coordinated, that would be a different thing. This would be an important moment in the immigration debate. But to see already vulnerable folks then treated as political pawns is obviously no party’s goal.”

Maureen Meyer, vice president for programs at the Washington Office on Latin America, also homed in on Texas’ failure to cooperate with the busing destinations.

“Increased coordination and additional federal support is needed for local communities receiving migrants and asylum seekers, but in the meantime, local governments, organizations and volunteers have stepped up independently to help these migrants resettle and obtain legal services to navigate their immigration cases,” she said.

New York officials didn’t respond to an inquiry for this report.

D.C. officials said they welcomed 66 total buses with 2,566 migrants. Most of them, nearly 88%, indicated they were heading to final destinations outside the District.

New York was the top designation, followed by New Jersey.

More than 1,300 were given temporary shelter, and 331 children were enrolled in schools. Ten babies among the new arrivals have been born.

Mayor Muriel Bowser’s emergency declaration over the migrants has expired, though legislation establishing the welcoming office is in effect through August.

The White House initially mocked Mr. Abbott for wasting Texas taxpayers’ money by saying he was paying to transport people who wanted to leave the state anyway.

The administration eventually settled on the coordination critique and complained that moving migrants made it tougher for them to check in with the government.

Ken Oliver, senior director of Right on Immigration at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said Mr. Abbott’s campaign brought the realities of the border chaos to places that usually didn’t pay attention.

D.C. leaders claimed they didn’t have the resources to handle the several thousand new arrivals and pleaded with the federal government for more money.

In Chicago, residents balked at a migrant camp in their neighborhood.

In New York, Mayor Eric Adams was stashing migrants in a giant tent in a flood zone until activists shamed him into shutting it down. They said the mayor was violating the city’s right-to-shelter law.

Mr. Adams acknowledged this year that New York was offering bus tickets for migrants to travel north, taking a page out of Mr. Abbott’s playbook. Mr. Adams was hoping they would cross the border into Canada.

“As people see migrants housed in hotels that normal Americans would never get the government to pay their way to stay at, much less transportation around the country, it’s helped fuel a backlash,” Mr. Oliver said.

He said some conservatives had “trepidation” about spending taxpayer money on illegal immigrants. As they looked into the issue, however, they figured the price for a bus seat was far lower than the state’s costs for education, public safety and health care for each new arrival.

“There were skeptics early on, but then you saw validation of it, and even imitation of it by the governor of Florida taking it to another level,” Mr. Oliver said.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey also started sending migrants to the nation’s capital. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, a playground for the country’s liberal elite.

Mr. Krikorian said those governors helped “de-Trumpify” immigration by refocusing the debate squarely on Mr. Biden’s struggles and away from former President Donald Trump, who had a knack for poisoning policy positions for much of the public merely because he held them.

“In all of this busing thing, Trump is not the story at all,” Mr. Krikorian said.

Busing was just one part of Mr. Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, begun in 2021 to fill gaps left by Mr. Biden’s more lenient approach to illegal immigration.

He has started building border walls on state land, deployed the Texas National Guard and state troopers to the border to deter illegal crossings, and encouraged local prosecutors to bring charges when federal officials won’t.

Prosecutors can charge smugglers and illegal immigrants with trespassing.

Last year, Mr. Abbott announced strict state safety inspections for commercial traffic crossing from Mexico. The goal was to pressure Mexico to do more to stop the flood of people and drugs. After a few days and massive delays at the border crossings, Mr. Abbott declared victory and relaxed the inspections — with no long-term dent in the flow of people or drugs.

Wall construction has also been a slog, with just 1.7 miles constructed in 2022. Texas is considering another 14 miles of construction across two contracts this year.

The state Legislature is looking at more steps.

One pending bill would establish a force to track down and slap unauthorized migrants with stiffer state penalties, including a $10,000 fine.

“The governor has always said that there’s more to be done. This isn’t the last movie. Operation Lone Star continues to add new initiatives, and that’s happening as we speak in the Texas Legislature,” Mr. Oliver said.