Global Courant
The bus pulled into Union Station in downtown Los Angeles with tired parents who had spent more than 20 hours on the road trying to soothe their babies and toddlers.
Carrying a woman whose husband was separated from her family at the border and who is fighting deportation in Texas. With 42 migrants from Guatemala, Venezuela, Haiti and at least one from China, among others.
The group, which arrived Wednesday afternoon, is among more than 21,600 migrants transported across the country from Texas, under a plan hastily drafted last year by Lone Star State Gov. Greg Abbott.
There have been buses to Washington, DC to New York City. To Chicago. To Philadelphia. Most recently to Denver.
But Wednesday marked the arrival of the first group of migrants to be bussed from Texas to LA, in a move Abbott blamed on “overwhelmed” border towns he says are “on the frontlines of President Biden’s border crisis.” .
In a statement Wednesday, Abbott said the state “will continue to provide this much-needed assistance until (Biden) stands up to do his job and secure the border.” The governor called LA “a city where migrants want to go, especially now that leaders have approved self-declared refugee status.”
The Los Angeles City Council recently passed a motion, referred to by councilors as a “sanctuary city” bill, that would essentially codify existing policies around the use of city resources for federal immigration enforcement, including a Executive Directive 2017 issued by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Officials will bring blankets to St. Anthony’s Croatian Catholic Church in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Forty-two migrants, including some children, were dropped off at Union Station around 4 p.m. and were cared for at the church.
(Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press)
“Obviously (Abbott’s) a weak-minded, far-right politician who is incapable of coping with this moment of the crisis that’s unfolding,” said LA Councilman Eunisses Hernandez, who helped bring forward the ” sanctuary city” motion. “Instead of handling it as a leader…he kicks it off for a political stunt. We in Los Angeles, we are a city for everyone, and we are ready to support and welcome them.”
It is the third time in recent weeks that migrants have been brought to California from other states, moves that come amid a backdrop of intense national debate over how to handle the influx of migrants entering the US across the Mexican border each year.
Last week, Florida officials took responsibility for two charter flights carrying 36 migrants to Sacramento on separate days. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a public records request with the Florida Gov. office on Wednesday. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Division of Emergency Management to determine the circumstances under which they were dispatched.
While many of those who arrived in LA have connections in the region, some families are holding immigration hearings in other states — including New York — causing logistical problems. Organizers on the ground added that they only learned of the impending arrival the night before and believe it was intended to catch them flat-footed.
“It is so important to really reiterate that what happened here was intended as a political stunt. It was meant to shock Los Angeles and to make sure we can’t humanely welcome these people,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, a lawyer and executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “Certainly, folks, if they have connections to Los Angeles and they’re trying to get here, it can be a good thing to get them here.
“However, this is really about doing it in a way that uses people as political props, purposefully not informing to make sure people don’t get the resources and humanity they deserve. ”
As governors in other states began ferrying migrants across the country, LA officials and organizers began preparing.
Shortly after Mayor Karen Bass took office, she directed city services to begin planning in case LA was “on the receiving end of a despicable stunt that Republican governors have become so fond of,” she said in a statement Wednesday.
Daniella Urbina, who works in the office of LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis, said that since last year, the supervisor has been directing county departments to prepare for “something like this,” when Florida and Texas sent migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and sent it to Vice. President Kamala Harris’ home in Washington.
The LA Welcomes Collective – a network of non-profit, religious, and immigrant rights organizations – was created to ensure that migrants arriving in the city felt welcome. In recent months, the collective has received and welcomed newcomers who came alone.
In recent months, organizers have heard rumors that Texas would send a busload of migrants to LA, but none turned out to be true, said Angélica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. Then, on Tuesday night, they got a tip that a bus would arrive in LA the next day. On Wednesday morning it was determined that the bus was on its way.
The group, which included 17 children, arrived around 4:30 p.m. While a few were met at the station by relatives or sponsors, the majority of the migrants went to a reception center set up in a nearby church.
“If this is basically a group coming from Texas because this is their destination, let’s organize it,” Salas said. “That’s not what (Abbott) wants. He wants the shadowy ‘maybe they’ll come, maybe they won’t.’”
Among the migrants was a woman whose husband had separated from her and her child at the border. The husband is still in Texas fighting deportation, Toczylowski said, and the mother and child “are distraught.”
Toczylowski drove the bus of migrants to the church and told them they were welcome in LA and that the organizers were happy to see them. When she told a mother and her preteen daughter that, Toczylowski said, the mother began to cry.
“In my mind, that was because this was really the first time anyone welcomed her to the United States,” Toczylowski said.
Guerline Jozef, the founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigrant advocacy network that helps black asylum seekers and others with migration, said her organization knew about the bus before it arrived in LA.
“For several months we understood that buses might be coming to Southern California, including Orange County and LA,” Joseph said. “And we’ve reached out to our community to prepare for the possible arrival of people seeking safety and protection.”
Joseph was harsh on the political message of Republican governors like Abbott, condemning Abbott’s policy of “using people as pawns.” But she said she supports some efforts to transport migrants.
“We are determined to continue to welcome all people with dignity, and if that means someone putting them on a bus to their final destination, where they have family and friends, we will continue to support and welcome them,” said Jozef.
But Jozef made it clear that she would only support relocation if migrants are transported to places where they actually want to go and if full and prior consent is guaranteed.
“For (Republican governors) to send them places that are not their final destination — that is inhumane and cruel,” Joseph said.
For years, Tiffany Burrow, director of operations for the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition in Texas, has helped migrants arriving in Del Rio book travel elsewhere at the border. When Abbott announced its bus plan, Burrow became a willing participant.
Many migrants paroled by border agents have little money to travel and are unfamiliar with the vast geography of the US, she said.
Burrows said she doesn’t always subscribe to the political message behind Abbott’s bus campaign, but she and other migrant advocates have supported the usefulness of the buses — they get a lot of people where they need to go.
In Del Rio, Burrow leads orientations for recently paroled migrants. She shows them a map of the US and explains in detail where the Texas state buses stop. She and her team ensure that every migrant who embarks has given permission and has a good reason to board. For example, she makes sure that no one trying to get to Florida gets on a bus to Chicago.
Burrow said she has supported previous buses to New York, DC, Philadelphia and Chicago, but she has questions about this latest bus from McAllen to LA. She said the fact that a man had a lawsuit in New York worries her.
“Migrants can change their address to different locations, but it complicates their affairs when they move around,” Burrow said.
While many in the LA group are believed to have connections in the region, that turned out not to be the case in Sacramento. Two migrants who were approached in El Paso and offered flights by contractors working for the DeSantis administration said the Florida contractors did not specify which city the flights were going to — only that they would land in California. Both declined the offer.
DeSantis and his spokespersons have defended the flights, arguing that migrants embarked voluntarily.
California Governor Gavin Newsom quickly condemned the flights, saying his administration is investigating whether they “violate criminal laws, including kidnapping.”
While it’s impossible to control DeSantis and Abbott’s actions, Toczylowski said, “What we can control here in LA is how we react. With that, I’m just really proud of how we’ve responded, and we’ll continue to be willing to welcome people in the future if it continues to happen.
Times staff writer Melissa Gomez contributed to this report.
