Fed-Up Democrat Texas Mayor Follows Governor Abbott's Lead: Buses Illegals to Sanctuary Cities
The Democratic mayor of El Paso, Texas, has taken a page from his Republican governor’s playbook and started busing illegal immigrants to cities controlled by his fellow Democrats.
Mayor Oscar Leeser sent five busloads of illegal immigrants to Chicago, Denver and New York over the weekend, according to Reuters.
“The city of El Paso only has so many resources and we have come to … a breaking point right now,” Leeser said at a news conference, according to the outlet.
Chicago’s WGN reported that two of the buses that left El Paso on Saturday were destined for Chicago.
In a twist to the story, however, WGN noted that Democratic Mayor Mike Johnson of Denver, which was receiving illegal immigrants from El Paso, had himself ordered seven busloads of illegals on to Chicago.
“All we can do is respond, receive and do our best to meet the moment,” Cristina Pacione-Zayas, 1st deputy mayor of Chicago, told WGN.
“There’s two things we don’t control, the number of buses and the frequency of how often they’re coming and what the federal government decides to do to manage the flow,” she added.
More than 15,000 illegal immigrants have been transported to Chicago, while New York City has received about four times that number.
“As an administration, we’re really a year-and-a-half into this crisis, really needing to step back and think about long-term,” an unnamed New York City official told WGN. “What does this look like? It’s not abating anytime soon.”
One thing it may look like in the short term: Democratic Mayor Eric Adams is reportedly considering a plan to “kick out” unmarried adults after two months if they aren’t accompanied by minors.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have both been criticized for transporting illegals out of their states; what national Democrats will say about two mayor from their own party doing the same thing remains unseen.
Leeser told Reuters that the immigrants leaving El Paso were volunteers and had been allowed their choice of destinations.
He said the city only had room for about 400 people in its shelter, though it was building another to house more.
However, the city had recently been seeing 2,000 illegals enter their city daily, sometimes more, which was more than five times the number from only six weeks ago.
“I think it’s really important to note that we have a broken immigration system,” he told Reuters. “It’s the same thing over and over again.”
About two out of three illegal immigrants in the El Paso area are single men, Leeser said, with most of the rest being families.
Only about 2 percent are unaccompanied minors.
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