A bus carrying 41 migrants from Brownsville, Texas, arrived in Los Angeles Tuesday night, the fourth such bus to arrive in the city in recent weeks.
Among the passengers on board were six children aged 1 to 15 years.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbot’s administration has sent more than 25,000 migrants to cities across the US, including New York City, Chicago and Washington, DC
More than 80 migrants have been sent to Los Angeles, he said in a July 10 tweet.
Texas has installed giant buoys over the Rio Grande, creating a floating barrier in a desperate attempt to stem migrant crossings. Construction of the 1,000-foot barrier began July 7 in the town of Eagle Pass.
A bus carrying 41 migrants from Brownsville, Texas, arrived in Los Angeles Tuesday night
Buoy barriers will be installed and erected in the middle of the Rio Grande on July 18, 2023 in Eagle Pass, Texas
The 1.2m wide orange buoys are chained together to form a barrier and the netting underneath prevents swimming underneath.
The Los Angeles Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights believes the bus carrying migrants was funded by Texas state officials.
It said about half of the migrants were from Venezuela and the others from countries like China, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras.
On June 14, Governor Abbott sent migrants from Texas to Los Angeles for the first time, in what Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called a “political stunt.”
The migrants were received by the Immigration Coalition and other community groups and provided with food, clothing, toiletries and consultations with immigration lawyers.
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“We will do what we must to protect the dignity and safety of these families whenever they arrive,” Coalition chief executive Angelica Salas said in a statement.
“We will work with other like-minded people and organizations in Los Angeles to welcome these asylum seekers with compassion and respect.”
Salas called on the Biden administration to provide shelters to asylum seekers and to increase funding for nonprofits and community groups that support migrants “as we watch more and more buses arriving in California and other states.”
Asylum-seeking migrants walk across an island while trying to cross the Rio Grande River to the United States in Eagle Pass, Texas, July 18, 2023
“We do not consider these incidents to be well-intentioned,” Salas said. “Texas and Florida have demonstrated a callous disregard for the human experience, particularly in relation to black and brown-skinned asylum seekers.”
“Busing migrants anywhere in the middle of a hot summer is unkind, it’s cruel and unjustified,” Salas added.
According to federal officials, Gov. Abbott and the Texas Department of Public Safety have ignored federal government requests for information about the floating buoy wall near Eagle Pass.
Texas did not consult the federal government prior to deploying the barriers and did not respond to official requests for more information, even after raising concerns that they may violate international agreements with Mexico, a State Department spokesman said Tuesday.
Mexico’s top diplomat said Friday the country had sent the US federal government a diplomatic note regarding the floating barrier, arguing it could violate treaties dating back to 1944 and 1970 that govern use of the river.
“The real problem is that President Biden’s open border policy has created chaos at the border that is unsustainable,” said Andrew Mahaleris, press secretary for Gov. Abbott.
“We have a constitutional duty to do what President Biden failed to do, which is to respond to this unprecedented crisis.”