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Texas is sending migrants to New York and Washington, DC, by bus. Many are glad to go

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Lower than per week since discovering shelter in Eagle Move, Texas, after crossing the Rio Grande, they launched into one other journey Thursday morning: this time to Washington DC, on a bus.

They’re among the many hundreds of migrants despatched by bus from the Lone Star state to DC and New York this yr on the course of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, in an effort to spotlight his criticism of the Biden administration’s immigration insurance policies.
“Earlier than we started busing migrants to New York, it was simply Texas and Arizona that bore the brunt of all of the chaos and issues that include it,” the governor stated in a press release this week. “Now, the remainder of America can perceive precisely what’s going on.”
Abbott stated Friday the state had despatched greater than 7,000 migrants by bus to Washington since April and greater than 900 migrants to New York Metropolis since August 5.

Many, like Figueroa, are comfortable to go away Texas. The buses cease at a number of cities alongside the way in which to the Northeast, permitting migrants to disembark to reunite with family and friends in different areas. In Washington DC, Figueroa and her husband will meet with their associates.

However officers in New York have pointed to the circumstances of the journey, saying migrants arriving in these buses are hungry, thirsty and “usually sick.”

“We have been on the street for thus lengthy, we do not thoughts two or three extra days,” Figueroa, 28, instructed CNN in Spanish.

Neither do Cousins Luis Pulido and Aynner Garrido, who spent six weeks touring from Venezuela to Texas. Pulido’s youthful brother didn’t make it to the US with them. He disappeared when the group was swimming throughout the Rio Grande. Shelter officers in Texas instructed Pulido they discovered his brother’s physique; he had drowned.

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However the cousins have made it this far and are decided to proceed with their plans. They may board the bus to DC and can get off earlier than their vacation spot, in Kentucky, the place their kinfolk shall be ready to choose them up.

“They need to go on the buses,” stated Valeria Wheeler, the chief director of Mission: Border Hope, a non-profit group which serves the border group in Eagle Move. “Nobody has been pressured.”

The teams are going partly as a result of they need to, Wheeler added, and partly as a result of it’s a free journey to New York or Washington.

The cities on the receiving finish have struggled to accommodate the surge in migrants and their wants. New York Metropolis officers stated final week consumption facilities have been already overwhelmed, and though they deliberate to open extra emergency housing this month, they confronted issues stemming from an absence of coordination from the state of Texas.

“They’ve basically weaponized this example,” Manuel Castro, commissioner of the mayor’s immigrant affairs workplace, stated in a current metropolis council listening to. “We have discovered that the bus firm that they have been working with has a nondisclosure settlement that doesn’t enable them to speak with the town of New York.” Abbott’s workplace didn’t reply CNN’s prior questions regarding nondisclosure agreements for bus corporations.

New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams has additionally accused Abbott of forcing migrants onto the buses, which the governor has denied.

Final week, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser renewed a request for the Nationwide Guard to help with the continuing arrival of migrants, after a previous request was declined. Her workplace has stated the town has reached a “tipping level.”
The mayor’s workplace had additionally requested to transform a “appropriate federal location” within the space right into a processing middle for the migrants, saying a regional welcome middle in Maryland was at capability, CNN beforehand reported.

Again in Eagle Move, greater than 40 individuals, together with males, ladies and kids, boarded the bus headed for DC Thursday morning together with cousins Pulido and Garrido, and Figueroa and her husband.

When she will get there, Figueroa instructed CNN she hopes to have the ability to discover work cooking, cleansing or in an workplace, to have the ability to help her household again dwelling.

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