A bus of migrants who were apprehended in Texas arrived in Chicago Wednesday night, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) says. He previously sent buses of migrants to Washington, D.C. and New York.
Abbott made the announcement Wednesday at a campaign event in Collin County.
Through the middle of August, Customs and Border Protection had arrested 1.81 million people for crossing illegally and was on pace for more than 2 million in the fiscal year that ends in September.
"I was in a meeting with mayors, sheriffs, county judges and other folks who were having to deal with all these migrants who were being dumped into their communities," Abbott said during a speech in North Texas Wednesday. "They had no way of dealing with it."
Abbott said, by busing migrants to other cities, "we are showing America, actually showing the world, what is going on with this immigration crisis."
Abbott says he chose Chicago because the city has adopted a policy to prevent its police from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"Far from being a hotbed of criminal activity, studies actually show that there is less crime in areas with welcoming policies than in non-welcoming areas around the country," the city of Chicago writes on a website for its "Welcoming City" policy.
Buses began arriving in Washington, D.C. in April. In July, Mayor Muriel Bowser sent a letter to the secretary of defense asking for the National Guard to be activated.
"The pace of the arriving buses and the volume of arrivals have reached tipping points. Our collective response and service efforts have now become overwhelmed," she wrote.
"They are dealing with a trickle of what we deal with every single day and are incapable of handling it" Abbott said.
Bowser's request was denied, with the Department of Defense saying FEMA had provided enough money for food and shelter.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke has described Abbott's decision to bus migrants to other cities as "counterproductive political stunts."
"When we focus on solutions instead of stunts, we can invest in border enforcement that actually works," he writes on his campaign website.
O'Rourke says he would push for a guest worker program. For enforcement, he says he would support the use of more sensors, surveillance towers and drones between border crossings.
Speaking to a Republican club in Fairview, the Governor said "we are not done yet. There are more cities on the list."
The Center for Immigration Studies describing itself as "pro-immigrant" lists both Chicago and New York as "sanctuary cities" for immigrants.
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