Greg Abbott Claims Victory As Migrant Buses Stop Leaving Texas

Republicans have claimed victory as Greg Abbott‘s buses have stopped ferrying migrants out of Texas.

Abbott’s flagship immigration policy of sending busloads of migrants from the U.S-Mexico border to Democratic stronghold cities like New York has seemingly ground to a halt.

Buses have essentially stopped because there aren’t enough migrants to be sent across the country. Abbott used the policy to exert pressure on the Biden administration.

Abbott also claims his border security policies are why border crossings have declined.

James Wesolek, an official at the Republican Party of Texas, told Newsweek: “Biden’s EO authorized over 2,500 illegal border crossings a week. Governor Abbot’s unceasing efforts to secure the border, including razor wire, river buoys, and their subsequent legal battles, is what secured the border.”

Immigration is a key issue in this year’s election cycle, as curbing migration has been a centerpiece of former President Donald Trump‘s campaign.

Encounters at the Southwest border were lower in July of this year than in July 2023, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection: 104,116 encounters compared to 183,479

A poll by Gallup shows that 55 percent of respondents, both Democrats and Republicans, want to see immigration levels decrease.

Abbott told NewsNation: “Let’s look at the timeline, because you will remember that Joe Biden put his so-called executive order in place where he helped to close the border in June. But if you go back and look at when border crossings began to decline, that was more than a half a year before that, back in last December, and that was after Texas had begun our accelerated operations to deny illegal entry, using the guard, using the razor wire, using the pepper ball.

“It was the robust, comprehensive approach by Texas that actually led to the decline. Biden just happened to come in and stepped and rode on our coattails.”

Newsweek understands that the last bus carrying migrants to Denver arrived on June 11, and there is no one at the city’s emergency shelters for migrants.

Meanwhile, a recent report in the New York Times suggests the last bus that left the U.S.-Mexico border near El Paso for New York was on June 27 carrying 50 migrants.

However, Jon Ewing, a spokesman for the Denver mayor, suggested Democrats could take credit. He told Newsweek, “The numbers are night and day since President Biden’s order took effect.”

Abbott has taken an aggressive approach to handling the influx of migrants arriving through the U.S.-Mexico border and directed buses to transport them to Democratic-run cities.

According to Abbott’s office, over 120,000 migrants have been bused to Democratic-led cities such as Chicago, New York, Washington, and Denver since the policy was implemented in April 2022.

Texas has spent about $150 million busing migrants out of the state, and taxpayers have been on the hook for the majority, according to CNN.

At the Republican National Convention, Abbott vowed to continue busing migrants to Democratic cities.

“We have continued busing migrants to sanctuary cities all across the country,” he said to delegates.

“Those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border.”

“I took the border to them,” Mr. Abbott told a cheering crowd at the Republican National Convention.

In April 2022, Abbott announced Texas would start transporting migrants who had been released from federal custody to other states across the country. He said he was doing it to prevent the state from shouldering “the burdens imposed by open-border advocates in other parts of the country.”

Initially launched as a response to the overwhelming number of migrants entering Texas, the program aimed to relieve the burden on local communities by transporting migrants to cities like New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

In January, New York City Mayor Eric Adams filed a lawsuit seeking more than $700 million from 17 transport companies that have bussed migrants from Texas to New York City.

Adams claims that Abbott carried out a political “scheme” to transport migrants into the city in an attempt to “overwhelm” the city’s social services.

Julia Gelatt, Associate Director at the Migration Policy Institute, told Newsweek: “Abbott’s busing scheme was a politically motivated move intended to antagonize Democratic-led cities and make a point about the challenges of receiving large numbers of migrants.

“Migrant arrivals are down all across the border, likely due to a mix of changes in Biden administration policies and Mexico’s strengthened enforcement efforts.”

Yael Schacher, Director for the Americas and Europe Contents at Refugees International, also told Newsweek Abbott’s program was political rather than humanitarian.

“Abbott’s bus policy was designed to ‘bring the border’ to cities like New York — it was not meant to be a humanitarian, but a political program—and it cost the state of Texas more money to bus people to DC, New York, and Chicago than it would have cost to buy them plane tickets to their destinations.

“The drop in encounters at the border began at the beginning of this year because of increased Mexican enforcement and then dropped again because of the Biden administration’s border proclamation and regulation in June.”

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