Texas has bused around 120,000 migrants from its border cities to so-called "sanctuary cities" over the past year and a half, investing some $221 million as of August of this year. The largest share of these migrants have been transported to New York City, which received more then 45,000 migrants through that method in that span.
The impact of this flow prompted the city's mayor, Eric Adams, to file a lawsuit in January against charter bus companies contracted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, seeking to bar them from knowingly dropping off "needy persons." To back its claim, the government cited a 1817 state law that criminalized bringing an indigent person into the state "for the purpose of making him a public charge."
"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 at the time while Abbott denounced the lawsuit as "baseless."
The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed this past weekend as New York judge Mary Rosado ruled that the law cited by Adams was unconstitutional since it violated the right to interstate travel and was outdated for regulating modern migration, as reported by The Hill. She added that the city should set its sights on Congress for a solution, not impose an "antiquated, unconstitutional statute to infringe on an individual's right to enter New York based on economic status."
Rosado also also said requiring bus operators to screen passengers based on the possibility that they may need public assistance when they get to their destination would infringe on that fundamental right, and punishing the bus companies for failing to keep poor people out of the city would be improper.
"We are reviewing our legal options to address the costs shifted to New York City as a result of the Texas busing scheme," Adams' spokesperson Liz Garcia said in a statement to The Hill.
Adams initially sought $708 million in funding through this lawsuit to cover the costs of shelter and services provided to incoming migrants. His administration noted that the lawsuit had, in effect, reduced the number of chartered buses coming to New York, but officials have indicated that they will continue exploring further legal options to address the impact of Texas's busing program.
The court decision was welcomed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, as express by the organization's NYCLU senior staff lawyer Beth Haroules to the Texas Tribune:
"Mayor Adams is not above the law and cannot keep wrongly exploiting the plight of newly arrived immigrants to bolster his own political agenda. Everyone, regardless of their citizenship status or income, has the right to freely travel and reside anywhere within the United States."
Texas has barely sent any buses up north during the second half of the year as tighter measures by the Biden administration at the southern border and increased enforcement from Mexico have led to a drastic drop in border arrivals.
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