Mayor Eric Adams wants to expand NYC’s migrant bus crackdown to planes, trains
Mayor Eric Adams wants to add trains and planes to his executive order limiting migrant buses arriving in the Big Apple — as City Hall attempts to stem the flood of asylum seekers now flocking in on New Jersey transit trains.
The call comes as Adams was scheduled to huddle with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy over the new wrinkle in the crisis, which saw busloads of migrants thwarting the crackdown by heading to the Garden State, where asylum seekers would then hop trains into Manhattan.
“We’re dealing with a person who just wants to disrupt,” Adams said Tuesday, referring to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been transporting migrants who cross the southern border illegally to progressive sanctuary cities.
“We want to send the right message to bus operators — ‘You should not participate in the actions of Governor Abbott.’
“We’re going to use everything within our powers to make sure that there are things we could do to stop planes,” Adams added.
The mayor announced an executive order last week requiring charter bus companies to give City Hall a 32-hour notice before dropping migrants off in the city, and limiting the transports to one location on West 41st Street and only between 8:30 a.m. and noon.
The measure was Adams’ latest strategy to get control over the crisis, which has seen more than 160,000 migrants from the US border dropped off in New York City since the spring of 2022 — bringing the city shelter system to the breaking point.
But the charter buses — primarily from Texas, the main source of asylum seekers arriving in northern cities — quickly found an end-around.
“We were told, ‘This is the last stop,’” Colombian migrant Lizbeth Julian said Tuesday, recounting her arrival in Secaucus after an arduous trek across the US border.
She said the bus driver then guided her onto a Manhattan-bound train.
“We’re immigrants,” Julian said. “We are used to confusion.”
Other migrants told The Post some are flying into JFK, LaGuardia or Newark airports and taking Uber rides into Manhattan — also bypassing Adam’s order regarding migrant buses.
Marien Villegas, a 32-year-old mother from Venezuela, said she was bused from Texas to Boston — but then fled to the Big Apple via train with hopes of better housing.
“They don’t really help you in Boston,” she told The Post outside the Roosevelt Hotel. “It’s more comfortable here. Better.”
Gov. Abbott on Tuesday said the Lone Star state has transported “over 95,000 migrants” to sanctuary cities.
“Sanctuary cities like NYC & Chicago have seen only a FRACTION of what overwhelmed Texas border towns face daily. We will continue our transportation mission until Biden reverses course on his open border policies,” he wrote on X.
But Abbott’s ploy has now also sparked backlash on the other side of the Hudson River, where quiet suburban towns have been reluctantly converted into bustling migrant transit hubs.
“I want to be very clear — if any bus, train or plane of illegal migrants come to Edison, I have instructed our law enforcement and emergency management departments to charter a bus to transport the illegal migrants right back to the southern Texas/Mexican border,” Edison Mayor San Joshi said on Facebook.
“Our border policies need to be strengthened to stop illegal migrants from entering our country.”
A spokesman for Murphy, meanwhile, declined to confirm or deny a pending meeting with Adams.
“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,” Tyler Jones, the Jersey governor’s press secretary, said in a statement to The Post.
“We are closely coordinating with our federal and local partners on this matter, including our colleagues across the Hudson,” Jones added.
The Adams administration is hoping to rally support for an expanded executive order.
“The state of Texas is purposely trying to evade the executive order,” City Hall Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg said Tuesday.
“The city has in fact called upon and encouraged all surrounding counties in New York, New Jersey elsewhere to issue similar [executive orders] to what New York City has done. What’s happening right now is bonkers.”
Additional reporting by Max Rivera
