Abbott’s supporters say what he did was a “stroke of genius,” while his Democratic detractors say it was a “stroke of cruelty.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHICAGO \u2014 Texas Gov. Greg Abbott knows he\u2019s wreaking havoc by sending busloads of migrants from his border towns to sanctuary cities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The signs are evident. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
New York says it\u2019s at a breaking point. Chicago is running out of time and space before a harsh winter sets in. Washington, D.C. says its housing is at capacity. Other cities,\u2002like Denver,<\/a> have declared states of emergency. <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n But if Abbott has made one thing clear, it\u2019s this: He\u2019s not stopping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For more than a year, Abbott has regularly sent busloads of migrants\u2002<\/a>to cities that have deemed themselves sanctuaries to immigrants. It\u2019s a controversial practice, with officials on the receiving end saying the busing comes without warning or coordination and with an intent of creating chaos. Since April 2022, the Abbott administration has bused some 75,500 migrants from Texas to six cities<\/a>, according to the governor’s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abbott has said it all began<\/a> from sheer desperation while overseeing small border towns bursting at the seams with migrants. That\u2019s something he blames on President Joe Biden\u2019s border policies, which he says are lax. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Along the way, however, a different phenomenon has taken over \u2014 Democrats are raising the alarm on immigration, with the leaders of sanctuary cities and blue states thousands of miles from the southern border now warning their situation is dire. Democrats are calling on the White House for more funding and to seize control over the interior operations to ensure migrants are sent to areas that have the capacity to take them in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has all added up to a shift in the immigration debate<\/a>, where Democrats are calling out the president\u2002<\/a>of their own party to do more to contain what they call a crisis. And this winter could make it worse.<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked if the busing would continue through the winter months in cold-weather places like Chicago and New York, Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze said in a statement to NBC News, \u201cUntil President Biden does his job and secures the border, Texas will continue busing migrants to sanctuary cities to provide much-needed relief to our overwhelmed border towns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abbott says that he isn\u2019t alone; other organizations that receive federal funding,\u2002including Catholic Charities<\/a>, send migrants in buses and planes to places like Chicago and New York City. Eze, the spokesperson, said Texas can\u2019t be blamed for the bulk of the migrants sent to sanctuary cities, saying\u2002the numbers of migrants<\/a> the state sent only make up a fraction of the migrants arriving in those cities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Already, New York City Mayor Eric Adams\u2002has warned<\/a> that the migrant crisis could \u201cdestroy New York City.\u201d Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson\u2019s administration\u2002is warring with fellow Democrats<\/a> \u2014 both in the city council and at the state level \u2014 over where to house migrants over the winter. And on phone calls and even while on Air Force One with the president, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Biden ally, has repeatedly implored him to take action on border issues, according to the governor\u2019s office, particularly with federal funding, because he says his state is overwhelmed and running out of resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n From Abbott\u2019s standpoint, it\u2019s a shift that\u2019s long overdue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBefore we began busing illegal immigrants up to New York, it was just Texas and Arizona that bore the brunt of all of the chaos and all of the problems that come with it,\u201d Abbott said in an interview with\u2002ABC News\u2019 “Nightline”<\/a> a year ago. \u201cNow the rest of America is understanding exactly what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In some parts of Texas, there\u2019s firm support for Abbott. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019s doing the whole country a good service,\u201d said Dallas-based George Seay, the co-founder of Annandale Capital and an Abbott friend and supporter. \u201cMy first impression was, \u2018I don\u2019t really get where this is going and I\u2019m not sure how substantive this is.\u2019 And I look back on it and I think it\u2019s a stroke of genius on his part. He woke a whole lot of people up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is not a political thing,\u201d Seay continued, saying Abbott\u2019s actions were akin to dumping a bucket of ice water on the tops of officials in northern states. \u201cIt is a nonpartisan and nonideological, national crisis that has to be handled better.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas-based Republican strategist who also serves in the Texas State Guard, was among the first to execute a gubernatorial order to deploy groups of migrants on buses, he said. Steinhauser noted that if a city as large as Chicago was feeling the impact of immigrants sent by the hundreds, imagine the impact on tiny border towns that are regularly seeing migrants by the thousands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing with these numbers is that some of the blowback is from communities that feel like they\u2019re now competing for resources, competing for services with those folks,\u201d Steinhauser said of northern states struggles with migrant influxes. \u201cIt\u2019s now hitting the Democratic party in a Democratic-run city and creating a wedge within the Democratic party.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s indeed creating a wedge. Not only have there been flare-ups between local Democratic leaders calling on Biden to do more, but the competition over resources is an explosive issue in Chicago, where Black and brown communities have been at odds over the location of migrant camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As winter bears down in Chicago, Democrats in the city\u2002are at odds<\/a> with their counterparts at the state level over the latest site for a migrant camp badly needed before the worst of season hits. The city began preparing for a site to accommodate the thousands of migrants arriving mostly from Texas, only for the state to raise environmental concerns it says it already warned about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhile the City might be comfortable placing asylum seekers on a site where toxins are present without a full understanding of whether it is safe, the State is not,\u201d a governor\u2019s office spokesperson said in a statement this week. \u201cThis site will not move forward as a shelter with State involvement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scramble that ensued afterward prompted several aldermen to call for the resignations<\/a> of a slate of city officials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The governor’s office has called on the Biden administration to do more to curtail Abbott’s ability to control where the migrants are sent, suggesting it could activate<\/a> the Office of Refugee Resettlement to transport the migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not only are Democrats warring with each other, there are signs that the party is losing the public’s faith in whether it can handle the issue better than Republicans. A\u2002September NBC poll showed<\/a> that 50% of the registered voters surveyed said that the Republican Party was better at dealing with border security, compared to 20% of voters who chose Democrats. And 18% more registered voters in that survey chose Republicans over Democrats when asked who they thought was better at dealing with immigration overall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But even as the intraparty clashes ensue, Democrats point the finger down South, directly at Abbott. Asked about Seay\u2019s comment that Abbott\u2019s busing operation was a \u201cstroke of genius,\u201d Pritzker\u2019s chief of staff scoffed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a stroke of genius, I think it\u2019s a stroke of cruelty,\u201d Anne Caprara, Pritzker\u2019s chief of staff said in an interview. \u201cI\u2019d have a lot more sympathy for Greg Abbott if he approached this in a way of, \u2018We\u2019re running out of capacity in Texas, and we\u2019re incapable of handling this, so we need help. And so we\u2019re going to coordinate\u2019 \u2026 as opposed to the stunts, the not being willing to coordinate, not being willing to talk, not being able to try to help accommodate these people in a way that makes sense.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Caprara said Texas has had zero communication with Illinois at any level. Left in the middle, she said, are migrants who fled desperate situations in their home countries. She referenced episodes where buses dropped off migrants in the middle of the night. In one case,\u2002a child died<\/a> en route to Illinois from Texas as part of Abbott\u2019s busing program, she noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve never heard from his chief of staff, I\u2019ve never heard from the director of an agency. The governor himself has never picked up the phone and called my boss,\u201d Caprara said. \u201cIt actually in a lot of cases seems that they direct buses to drop off points to the places where there\u2019s going to be the maximum amount of chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The White House, too,\u00a0has rebuked\u2002<\/a>Abbott\u2019s practices, citing one of Abbott\u2019s bus deployments dropped off families outside of Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019 residence on Christmas Eve last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abbott\u2019s reasoning for the busing, a review of his public comments over the last year show, is that the Biden administration isn\u2019t enforcing immigration laws already on the books. With\u2002a record number<\/a> of migrants coming over the border and seeking asylum, systems are overwhelmed in Texas. Abbott has\u2002deployed groups of migrants<\/a> after they\u2019re processed by Border Patrol to places where he says there\u2019s more room. He\u2019s chosen sanctuary cities because they are supposed to be welcoming to immigrants, he says, and insists no newcomer to the country is forced to get on a bus; only those who raise their hands to travel to other cities are sent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Dylan Corbett, executive director of the El Paso-based Hope Border Institute, called it a \u201cvery gray, murky area\u201d on whether migrants were voluntarily agreeing to transportation to specific cities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAre people being forced against their will? I don\u2019t have any intel that suggests that that\u2019s the case,” Corbett said. “Are people always told with eyes wide open, with clarity, \u2018This is what\u2019s happening, this is where you\u2019re going, this is how long it will take?\u2019 No, that doesn\u2019t happen either.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the lack of coordination, Abbott has countered that he\u2019s doing what\u2019s been done to him, without warning or adequate assistance from the federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Wittman, a former communications official who previously served in the Abbott administration, said the governor has helped shift the conversation about immigration in the country with places like New York, Chicago and Boston talking about the border. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is no doubt that the busing strategy is having an impact,\u201d Wittman said. \u201cAll of a sudden, there does seem to be some actual bipartisan support for securing the border, which, before this busing strategy the governor implemented, I don\u2019t think anyone saw coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho would have thought Eric Adams would be calling on the Biden administration to do something about the border?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, Abbott argues that Chicago, New York and other big cities see the emergency for what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is something that\u2019s unsustainable. Those are the words of your mayor,\u201d\u2002Abbott<\/a> told a New York City crowd at the Manhattan Institute in September. \u201cThose are the words of the mayors of Chicago and L.A. Those are the words of the governor of Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n