(NewsNation) — Five additional buses carrying migrants arrived safely in New York City on Wednesday. After the buses left Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that more than a thousand migrants have been sent to New York, and thousands more have been sent to Washington, D.C.
The Texas governor started sending busloads of migrants to other cities in an effort to raise awareness of the migrant crisis at the border in his state.
Abbott also called out New York City Mayor Eric Adams in a New York Post op-ed Wednesday, accusing Adams of putting up a fake front.
“Mayor Adams likes to pat himself on the back for welcoming migrants with open arms to his sanctuary city. That is, until he actually has to follow through on those lofty promises,” Abbott wrote in the op-ed.
Abbott said that “worst of all is Adams’ hypocrisy,” asserting that the mayor has talked a big game about welcoming migrants but is now asking for federal assistance for a city that is now “overwhelmed by migrants.”
Also, Abbott said Adams discouraged Texas from sending more buses to his city, yet the New York City mayor remained silent when President Joe Biden flew migrants into New York.
The mayor’s office did not sit idly by, hitting back at the Texas governor.
Mayoral press secretary Fabien Levy tweeted, “Someone get this man a dictionary. ‘Hypocrisy’ is claiming you love America and then decrying the words on the Statue of Liberty.”
Levy continued, writing that Adams welcomes “asylum seekers with open arms,” and that the migrants “deserve more than being used by a governor who only cares about reelection.”
The Adams administration isn’t the only group critical of Abbott’s methods.
Manuel Castro, the city’s commissioner of immigrant affairs, told CBS on Wednesday that the Texas governor has been bar-coding people and treating them as “less than human, as if they were cattle.”
“I was incredibly shocked when I saw children with bracelets and bar codes and security personnel treating them as less than human beings,” he added.
Georgia state Rep. Mike Cameron, a Republican, who protested bus stops in Dade County, Georgia, has been vocal, as well.
“If Texas is going to put people on buses, they need to make sure that these individuals are going to their destinations,” he said. “I understand Texas’ problem, but don’t just put people on a bus and let them get off anywhere. That’s not a solution.”
Abbott even faces backlash from officals in his own state.
Speaking on Thursday’s edition of NewsNation’s “Rush Hour,” Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith says the money used for the migrant buses — an esitmated $12 million — can and should be used elsewhere.
“I get what Govenor Abbott is trying to do, but at the end of the day, it’s not securing the border. How much could that $12 million help if was into law enforcement or building the wall more or something actually securing the border?” Smith said.
Abbott, however, pushed back at these claims, with his spokesperson Renae Eze telling Fox News Digital that Adams and his administration “need to stop with the baseless lies and fearmongering.”
“These bracelets are standard protocol for voluntary transport by the Texas Division of Emergency Management and have been used during times of natural disasters like hurricanes when needing to transport people to safety,” she said in a statement.
The back-and-forth between administrations continued, but the real issue is that none of the political moves have helped solve the situation at the border.
In the meantime, buses will continue to leave Texas and Arizona every day, making the trek to cities on the East Coast until a deal can be struck to address the border problem.
