For the third time in the past month, a busload of migrants sent from Texas arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday, July 13, bringing the total number of migrants who have made the journey to 113.
Thirty migrants, including nine children, arrived at Union Station in downtown L.A. at about 12:45 p.m., and all appeared to be in general good health, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. CHIRLA is a member of the L.A. Welcomes Collective, a network of immigrant rights, legal services providers and faith organizations which has been providing support services to the migrants.
“We didn’t have anybody check in with first responders, which were available,” Cabrera said in describing the condition of the newly arrived migrants.
“Even though the bus did have a mechanical malfunction, which made them drive 45 mph and their trip took 31 hours instead of about 23, they all seemed to be OK because at least the air conditioner seemed to work,” Cabrera said, adding that the bus had reportedly overheated.
Local city and county officials and volunteers had been tipped off that another busload of migrants was expected to arrive around 2 a.m. Thursday, though the group did not actually make it to Union Station until nearly 11 hours later.
Zach Seidl, spokesperson for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, said in a statement that the city continues to work with the county and a coalition of nonprofit organizations “to execute a plan set in place earlier this year.”
“As we have before, when we became aware of the bus yesterday, we activated our plan,” Seidl said.
Volunteers had expected 35 migrants to arrive in L.A. from Brownsville, Texas, but later were told that five people from Venezuela were dropped off in Salome, Ariz., and the rest of the group continued on to Southern California, Cabrera said.
The 30 remaining migrants who made it to L.A. were originally from Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti and China, he…
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