Mayor Adams’ administration filed a lawsuit Thursday charging that 17 charter bus companies owe New York City at least $708 million for transporting tens of thousands of migrants to the five boroughs from Texas as part of a controversial relocation program launched by the Lone Star State’s Republican governor.
The suit, submitted in Manhattan Supreme Court, alleges that the companies, most of which are Texas-based, violated New York’s Social Services Law by contracting with Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration to transport more than 33,600 migrants to the Big Apple with little or no coordination with city officials since 2022.
The state law holds that anyone who “knowingly” brings a person to New York “for the purpose of making him a public charge” is responsible to “support him at his own expense” — and the suit argues the bus operators should thereby be on the hook to reimburse the city for the $708 million it has so far spent on providing shelter, food, health care and other services for the thousands of migrants they transported to New York City.
“Governor Abbott’s continued use of migrants as political pawns is not only chaotic and inhumane but makes clear he puts politics over people,” Adams, a centrist Democrat, said in a video message from City Hall. “Today’s lawsuit should serve as a warning to all those who break the law in this way.”
The bus operators named as defendants could not be immediately reached for comment. Gov. Abbott’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.
Abbott, a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, started sending migrants to New York and other liberal cities at the outset of the asylum seeker crisis in 2022 in a bid to highlight what he considers Democrats’ overly lax immigration policies.
Adams and other Democrats have blasted Abbott for the move, saying he’s putting migrants’ lives at risk and using them as…
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