While New York City Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly said buses of migrants arriving in his city from border states were unannounced, the city of El Paso reportedly said otherwise.
According to New York’s FOX 5, the communications director for the Texas city, Laura Cruz-Acosta, said that when the first bus traveled from El Paso to the Big Apple on Aug. 23, New York’s Emergency Management Department, New York NGOs and the mayor’s office had been aware.
She told the station that El Paso had developed a manifest.
“We would provide the manifest to the NGO at the final destination,” Cruz-Acosta said. “So we would coordinate with local NGOs at the destination sites and as well coordinate with the mayor’s offices as well as the emergency operations folks at the destination sites.”
However, according to Adams’ office, the city was never made aware of the number of buses or how many migrants were on board.
Migrants wait in line to board a chartered bus traveling to New York City outside a Welcome Center in El Paso, Texas, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022.
(Paul Ratje/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“The states are not giving us any heads up, so we do not know when [the buses] are coming in or how many come in,” mayoral spokesperson Fabien Levy said in the email to FOX 5.
The office said that there had never been an agreement to take in the migrants but that it had received notice the night before that a bus would arrive.
Fox News Digital’s requests for comment from Cruz-Acosta and the mayor’s office were not immediately returned.
NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 10: New York City Mayor Eric Adams walks in the annual annual Columbus Day Parade, the largest in the country, in Manhattan on October 10, 2022, in New York City.
((Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images))
SOUTHERN BORDER MIGRANT ENCOUNTERS SURPASS RECORD 227K IN SEPTEMBER
In a statement emailed to Fox News on Thursday, she said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had “discontinued” sending migrants to New York due to a “significant decrease in encounters” following a new Homeland Security policy action for Venezuelans.
“Two charters departed today for the remaining unsponsored migrants in local shelters as well as our hotel shelter operations. As a result, the city and OEM will be demobilizing the Migrant Welcome Center at the end of today, Thursday, Oct. 20. The city first began sponsoring charters on Aug. 23 and has since then chartered 294 buses to New York and Chicago. The city and OEM will continue to support our local NGOs by providing staffing and general support services as we have throughout the migrant surge and COVID-19 pandemic,” she said.
Around 60 recently arrived Venezuelan migrants are seen entering a shelter at Bellevue early Wednesday morning, Oct. 12, 2022, in Manhattan, New York.
((Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images))
Adams said Friday that the city had received a call from El Paso’s mayor and that the Texas city would no longer send buses to New York.
A White House official told Fox News that the federal government “stands ready to support the city of El Paso” in every way it can.
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El Paso has bused over 10,000 migrants to New York and thousands more to Chicago since August.
CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus told Bloomberg News on Thursday that border agents had encountered just 155 Venezuelans, down from a daily average of 1,200 earlier in the month.
Reuters contributed to this report.
