A bus carrying migrants from a Texas border city arrived in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday Immigration Transporting Migrantsfor the second time in less than three weeks.
The office of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was not formally notified but became aware on Friday of the bus dispatched from Brownsville, Texas, to L.A. Union Station, Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl said in a statement.
“The City of Los Angeles believes in treating everyone with respect and dignity and will do so,” he said.
The bus arrived around 12:40 p.m. Friday, and the 41 asylum-seekers on board were welcomed by a collective of faith and immigrant rights groups. Eleven children were on the bus, according to a statement by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.
The asylum seekers came from Cuba, Belize, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela. They received water, food, clothing and initial legal immigration assistance at St. Anthony’s Croatian Parish Center and church.
Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for the coalition, said the group “was less stressed and less chaotic than the previous time.” He said most were picked up by family in the area and appeared to have had sandwiches and water, unlike the first time.
L.A. was not the final destination for six people who needed to fly to Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco and Oakland, he said.
The city received a bus carrying 42 migrants from Texas on June 14. Many were from Latin American countries, including Honduras and Venezuela, and they were not provided with water or food.
Bass said at the time that the city would not be swayed by “petty politicians playing with human lives.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he sent the first bus to L.A. because California had declared itself a “sanctuary” for immigrants, extending protections to people living in the country illegally.
It was unclear if Abbott sent the latest bus. A phone message to his office was not immediately returned.
Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images
On two separate occasions in early June, groups of more than a dozen migrants were flown from California’s capital city of Sacramento after coming through Texas. Both flights were arranged by the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
In the first case, which occurred June 3, a group of 16 immigrants were dropped off outside a Sacramento church with only a backpack’s worth of belongings each.
“State-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice, it is immoral and disgusting,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement at the time, adding that his office was investigating whether criminal or civil charges were warranted.
Since last year, both DeSantis and Abbott have been routinely bussing or flying migrants to Democratic-run cities including New York City and Washington, D.C., a move critics have decried as inhumane political stunts.
