(NewsNation) — El Paso city leaders are starting to get more aggressive about busing migrants out of the city.
Recently, its city council voted on a new services contract with Gogo Charters LLC to “transport migrants to other cities as needed,” according to Border Report. Altogether, El Paso plans on spending up to $2 million in the next 16 months on busing.
Border Report wrote last week that more than 550 people released from federal immigration custody were bused out of the city in charters. In August, a bus of around 35 Venezuelan migrants were taken from El Paso to New York City, according to the Texas Tribune. El Paso’s city buses have been taking migrants to shelters, bus stations and the local airport as well.
Bussing migrants out of border states to cities like New York was a tactic also used by Texas Gov. Great Abbott, as well as the governor of Arizona. Recently, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent migrants by plane to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
As NewsNation previously reported, an “overwhelming” number of migrants have recently come into El Paso. This has resulted to an overflow of shelters in the city, and some migrants have even had to sleep on the streets.
Many of the migrants coming to El Paso are from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. These are places the United States doesn’t really have strong diplomatic relations with, making it difficult to send the migrants back to their country of origin.
Experts told NewsNation that if more migrants end up staying here in the United States, it encourages others to make the journey.
“When you see these individuals coming and wading the river and walking and stop them there — I’m not talking about taking possession of them, I’m talking about sending them back,” retired Homeland Security Investigations and ICE special agent Victor Avila said. “Because what you do is you will then send a message to several people, one to the cartels, and to the rest of the world — ‘Wait a minute, they didn’t let me in, what’s going on?'”