After getting dropped off by bus drivers in New Jersey, migrants who crossed the southern border are now boarding trains to New York City in an effort to circumvent Mayor Eric Adams’s new executive order attempting to regulate the inflow of migrant buses into his city.
Last week, Adams signed an emergency order requiring charter-bus companies to notify city officials of migrant arrivals at least 32 hours in advance, provide manifests of their passengers, and limit drop-offs to weekday mornings in a designated location. The order is designed to alleviate the migrant crisis in New York City, which saw more than 14,700 new arrivals in the past month and the arrival of 14 migrant-filled charter buses from Texas in a single night, Adams said last week.
However, several New Jersey officials say that bus operators are circumventing the new restrictions by dropping off migrants at several New Jersey train stations.
“Our Administration has tracked the recent arrival of a handful buses of migrant families at various NJ TRANSIT train stations,” said Tyler Jones, a spokesman for Governor Phil Murphy (D., N.J.). “New Jersey is primarily being used as a transit point for these families — all or nearly all of them continued with their travels en route to their final destination of New York City. We are closely coordinating with our federal and local partners on this matter, including our colleagues across the Hudson.”
Over the holiday weekend, at least four buses transporting migrants stopped at the Secaucus Junction train station Saturday morning. In response, Secaucus mayor Michael Gonnelli said Adams’s restrictions, which are causing the phenomenon, may be too strict.
“It seems quite clear the bus operators are finding a way to thwart the requirements of the Executive Order by dropping migrants at the train station in Secaucus and having them continue to their final destination,” Gonnelli said. “Perhaps the requirements Mayor Adams put in place are too stringent and are resulting in unexpected consequences as it seems the bus operators have figured out a loophole in the system in order to ensure the migrants reach their final destination, which is New York City. Based on reports from the State Police this is now happening at train stations throughout the state.”
Other cities in the Garden State, including Fanwood, Edison, and Trenton, have seen the same at their transit stations. As of Sunday, Jersey City learned that about ten buses from Texas and one from Louisiana arrived at those locations.
“This is clearly going to be a statewide conversation so important that we wait for some guidance from the Governor here on next steps as busses continue,” Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop said in a since-deleted post on social media.
Texas governor Greg Abbott has sent more than 33,600 migrants to New York City since August 2022 after they crossed the southern border, further challenging Adams’s handling of the migrant influx. In the past year, New York City has taken in over 160,000 asylum seekers thus far.
“Texas Governor Greg Abbott continues to treat asylum seekers like political pawns, and is instead now dropping families off in surrounding cities and states in the cold, dark of night with train tickets to travel to New York City, just like he has been doing in Chicago in response to their similar executive order,” said Adams spokesperson Fabien Levy. “This is exactly why we have been coordinating with surrounding cities and counties since before issuing our order to encourage them to take similar executive action to protect migrants against this cruelty.”