New York City has imposed new measures aimed at stemming the flow of migrants arriving there. Concretely, the Eric Adams administration has required charter bus companies to provide a 32 hours advance notice before their arrival and limited the days in which they can do so.
"We cannot allow buses with people needing our help to arrive without warning at any hour of day and night," said Adams. "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," he added.
Adams made the statements in the context of a joint press conference with the mayors of Chicago and Detroit, Brandon Johnson and Mike Johnston, in which they reiterated the need for federal help and coordination with Texas to deal with the continued increase of migrants arriving in their cities.
According to NBC News, Texas governor Greg Abbott's Lone Star operation, which sends buses filled with migrants to Democratic-led sanctuary cities, has already reached the 80,000 mark. The figures are set to increase as border encounters keep breaking records and the Abbott administration starts to also send planes to these cities.
"Until Biden steps up to secure the border, we will continue to provide overwhelmed Texas border towns with much-needed relief," said Texas Governor Greg Abbott about the decision.
Chicago had already implemented measures on so-called "rogue buses," issuing lawsuits, fines and tickets to those not abiding by the guidelines given by authorities. Buses have tried avoiding them by making unscheduled drop-offs in different areas of the city and the suburbs.
"The lack of care that has been on display for the last year and a half has created an incredible amount of chaos," said Brandon Johnson.
More than 26,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago in the past year, while over 35,000 have done so in Denver. The figure is substantially larger in New York, already over 161,000, including 4,000 only last week, according to the Adams administration.
Customs and Border Protection authorities informed that a new record was set last Wednesday after officials apprehended more than 12,000 migrants in a single day on the southwest border. Nearly 11,000 of them crossed illegally between ports of entry, the officials said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Mexico on Wednesday in hopes of tackling surging migration. Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador said Wednesday that Mexico was "helping a lot" on tackling migration.
"We're going to keep doing it and we want to reach an agreement," he said at his morning news conference, adding that next year's U.S. elections were giving fresh impetus to the issue.
"People leave their towns out of necessity and there's a lot of economic and social crisis in the world. It's necessary to further promote productive activities and job creation," Lopez Obrador said.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US delegation would speak to Lopez Obrador on the "urgent need for lawful pathways and additional enforcement actions" on migration.
Mexico, under agreements with both Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, has agreed at least temporarily to take in migrants seeking to cross into the United States.
Andrew Rudman, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, expected Blinken to seek additional support from Mexico to keep migrants within its borders, such as temporary work permits.
"The Biden administration wants to show for its own domestic political reasons that they're doing everything they possibly can," he said.
"One of the challenges is that everybody wants a short-term solution to a global, longstanding problem," Rudman said of migration. "There is no magic wand."
© 2023 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
