The controversial effort by Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, to bus people seeking asylum to Democratic-run cities has reportedly been foiled – because there are not enough migrants crossing the border.
Abbott claimed at the Republican national convention in July that he had “continued bussing migrants to sanctuary cities all across the country”, adding: “Those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border.”
But an investigation by NBC News found that many major Democratic cities, which had previously received migrants sent by Abbott, have not received any buses at all this year, as the number of people crossing the border has declined drastically in 2024.
NBC News reported that Washington DC, New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago had received no buses from Texas in 2024, after each of those cities had previously been targeted by Abbott.
Abbott began sending asylum seekers to cities in other states in 2022, in a move many saw as politically motivated. In January, Abbott claimed he had sent 100,000 people to various Democratic-run cities, including 37,100 people to New York City and 30,800 to Chicago. In February it emerged that Texas had spent $148m on the effort.
Despite Abbott’s recent claims to have continued sending people to cities, NBC News found that many cities targeted by the Texas governor have not received any buses for months.
“They now come much less frequently,” Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society of New York told NBC News: “Because they don’t have enough people to cross the border to fill up a bus.”
In May, the number of unauthorized crossings by people into the US was half that of the record high in December 2023. In June the number of people crossing the border fell to a three-year low, after Joe Biden signed a controversial executive order limiting immigration.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
A spokesman for Abbott told NBC News the decline in people crossing into the US was due to the governor’s actions, although US Customs and Border Protection has attributed the change to Biden’s order, which directed border agents to close the border to Mexico for people not authorized to enter the US when the numbers of asylum seekers rose above a daily threshold of 2,500.
