NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – Mayor Eric Adams announced a lawsuit on Thursday against 17 Texas charter bus and transportation companies that have brought migrants into New York City since spring 2022, intending to recoup the $708 million the city has expended on providing emergency shelter and provide for future transports.
Adams Texas Bus Companies Suit by erin.white on Scribd
According to the mayor's office, New York Social Services Law § 149 requires companies that intentionally transport people in need of shelter and services to the city "as part of a bad faith plan," incur those costs.
"Any person who knowingly brings, or causes to be brought, a needy person from out of state into this state for the purpose of making him a public charge … shall be obligated to convey such person out of state or support him at his own expense," the law reads.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has admitted to facilitating these transports, which have brought over 33,600 migrants to the city, officials said.
"New York City has and will always do our part to manage this humanitarian crisis, but we cannot bear the costs of reckless political ploys from the state of Texas alone," Adams said in a video statement.
Adams alleges that the defendants named in the suit knowingly followed Abbott's plan in an attempt to shift the costs of migration at the southern border to NYC and other democratic cities across the U.S.
The suit comes days after 10 buses from various locations in Texas and one from Louisiana brought almost 400 migrants to different New Jersey train stations, intentionally skirting Adams' executive order that bus operators provide 32 hours advance notice of new migrant arrivals and follow specified drop-off times.
Executive Order 538 was issued with the intention of ensuring the well-being and safety of both the migrants arriving in NYC and the city staff receiving them, authorities said.
"If they are getting paid to break the law by transporting people in need of public assistance into our state, they should be on the hook for the cost of sheltering those individuals – not just passing that expense along to hard-working New Yorkers," Gov. Kathy Hochul said in support of the lawsuit.
Between April 2022 and December 2023, the city has spent an estimated $3.5 billion on shelter and services for the over 164,500 migrants who have come through the city's intake center, City Hall said.
Adams plans to reach a 20% reduction in the city-funded spending on the crisis in the Fiscal Year 2024 Preliminary Budget that is to be released later this month.
"Texas. Governor Abbott's continued use of migrants as political pawns is not only chaotic and inhumane but makes clear he puts politics over people," Adams said. "Today's lawsuit should serve as a warning to all those who break the law in this way."
Abbott released a statement late Thursday afternoon in response to Adams' pending lawsuit.
"This lawsuit is baseless and deserves to be sanctioned. It's clear that Mayor Adams knows nothing about the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, or about the constitutional right to travel that has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court," Abbott said.
"Every migrant bused or flown to New York City did so voluntarily, after having been authorized by the Biden Administration to remain in the United States. As such, they have constitutional authority to travel across the country that Mayor Adams is interfering with. If the Mayor persists in this lawsuit, he may be held legally accountable for his violations."
