NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- The mayor of El Paso, Texas, on Friday stopped the months-long effort of busing migrants to New York and other sanctuary cities, Mayor Eric Adams confirmed to 1010 WINS.
“The mayor of El Paso communicated with our office that he won’t be sending any more buses,” Adams told 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa in a one-on-one interview Friday.
A spokeswoman for El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser previously told El Paso Matters that Thursday’s chartered buses were the last out of the city to New York after the Biden administration began a new policy of expelling Venezuelan migrants to Mexico under the controversial pandemic-era policy known as Title 42.
“Due to the new policy action for Venezuelans taken last week by the Department of Homeland Security, [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] discontinued sending migrants to the city this week because of a significant decrease in encounters,” spokeswoman Laura Cruz-Acosta said.
El Paso has bused about 10,600 migrants to New York since August, according to Reuters. The busing by Democratic El Paso got less coverage than similar efforts by the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona, who have sent thousands more migrants to New York since the spring.
More than 4,500 Venezuelans have already been sent back to Mexico since the Biden administration policy began last week. In addition to the mass expulsions, the White House has also started a program that will allow 24,000 Venezuelans with U.S. sponsors to apply for humanitarian entry by air. People crossing illegally at the border are ineligible for the program.
The buses of asylum-seekers have helped to overwhelm New York’s shelter system. Adams declared a state of emergency earlier this month, saying the humanitarian crisis was “unsustainable.”
The shelter system has been operating at capacity in recent weeks, with over 63,000 people as of Wednesday. That number was expected to surpass 100,000 in the coming year, according to the mayor's office, although it's unclear if that's still the case now that the flow of buses from the border appears to be easing.
Adams told 1010 WINS that he’s “happy as heck” the emergency relief center for migrants that the city just opened Wednesday on Randall's Island isn’t filling up as quickly as anticipated.
While the so-called “tent city” currently has the capacity to house 500 single men, there were reportedly only a handful of people living there as of Friday. Families have been housed elsewhere, including at hotels.
“We were really concerned,” Adams said. “We had a really unpredictable [Texas] governor. We had a mayor in El Paso that was sending anywhere from 10 buses a day to New York. It was predicted that we could have 100,000 people here.”
Adams said the city put pressure on the federal government for a national “decompression strategy” to handle the influx of people at the U.S.–Mexico border, all while finding ways to humanely support the migrants who've been arriving daily at Manhattan’s Port Authority Bus Terminal.
“We were hoping that they would listen, and they did,” Adams said. “And now we’re seeing a small amount of buses. The mayor of El Paso communicated with our office that he won’t be sending any more buses.”
“If it comes down that no one uses this tent at Randall’s Island, I am extremely pleased, because that shows the second phase of our plan has been successful,” the mayor added.
Asked if the city plans to dismantle the relief center just days after it opened, Adams said it will stay up for now as a sort of “insurance” given the unpredictability of the situation.
“If it fills up, we will have it here. But we see dismantling it. It’s not something we see as permanent,” he said.
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