A bus carrying 35 migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas is set to arrive in Los Angeles on Thursday, the third in a series launched by Gov. Greg Abbott and sent to California.
Volunteers with the L.A. Welcomes Collective, a network of nonprofit, faith and immigrant rights groups, were waiting to greet the bus at Union Station. They were alerted that the bus had left the border city of Brownsville early Wednesday.
"We are grateful to the City of Brownsville for sending information in advance about this bus so we can better prepare to welcome them," Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said in a statement. "We will continue to work with our community partners to receive migrants with dignity and ensure their legal needs are met."
Toczylowski's organization and others in the collective will offer migrants food, clothing and legal consultations upon their arrival.
This latest bus will roll into the station a little less than a month after the first Texas-funded bus arrived there June 14, carrying 42 migrants. Another bus, carrying 41 migrants, pulled into L.A. on July 1.
The 118 migrants who have been sent to California are a small fraction of the 22,000 whom Texas has bused to Democrat-run cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Washington.
Abbott has used the buses to protest Democrats' policies on immigration, often dropping passengers off at locations sure to create media spectacles — for instance, on Vice President Kamala Harris' lawn on a freezing Christmas Eve night.
However, many migrants have eagerly boarded the buses. For those with few resources, a free bus ride to reunite with family in cities distant from the border is a welcome offer.
That's why in Los Angeles, as well as other destination cities, nonprofit groups have decided to collaborate with the program, albeit begrudgingly. Though committed to getting migrants relocation assistance and helping communities prepare to welcome them, the aid groups are loath to support Abbott's political protest.
Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said her organization is coordinating with partners in Texas and the L.A. Welcomes Collective.
In Texas, the alliance has worked to ensure that all migrant passengers have given consent and are provided with adequate food and water on the buses. In L.A., Jozef has worked to make sure that local nongovernmental organizations and city officials are aware and prepared for the buses' arrival.
Jozef was clear that she condemns Abbott's politics and his practice of what she calls "using people as pawns." But if the buses can be a way for migrants to reunite with family and get to an embracing community, she said, she feels obligated to welcome the passengers to board — even if it leaves her organization subject to criticism.
"We are committed to continuing to welcome all people with dignity, and if that means somebody putting them on a bus to their final destination, where they have family and friends, we will continue to support and welcome them," Jozef said.
It's unlikely that Texas will send as many migrants to L.A. as it has to New York and Washington, given that only a small minority arriving on the Texas border are trying to make it to California. Most who want to reach the West Coast cross from Tijuana — Mexico's second-largest city — straight into San Diego.
Local officials in Los Angeles have been key partners in welcoming the buses that have arrived, Jozef said.
"We are … grateful to the city and county of Los Angeles for working with various local organizations to make sure that our newly arrived community members have food, water, legal assistance, and other necessities upon arrival and while connecting with their loved ones," Jozef said in a statement Thursday morning, adding a Haitian proverb: "Anpil men, chay pa lou! Many hands lighten the load."
