Migrant Busing Brings the Border Crisis to Sanctuary Cities

Since early August, Gov.

Greg Abbott

has been sending bus loads of asylum-seekers from the Texas border to sanctuary cities—New York, Chicago, Washington and other places that have policies discouraging local law enforcement from cooperating with federal authorities in enforcing immigration law. This week Florida Gov.

Ron DeSantis

one-upped Mr. Abbott by sending a small plane full of Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

New York is struggling to provide medical care and shelter for migrants in keeping with its sanctuary policies and right-to-shelter mandate. Some New York hospitals have seen unexpected arrivals of migrants throughout the summer, challenging already burdened staff. “Everyone is on board with wanting to help, but we don’t have the staff,” one doctor from a New York public hospital says. “The buses are coming unexpectedly, so there could be a wave of patients in the emergency room with complex medical and social needs that need to be triaged on top of the patients that are already there.”

Housing the migrants is even more complicated, despite the city’s best efforts. Shelter vacancy rates in June were under 1%, far below the city’s 5% target. On Aug. 1, Mr. Adams made an emergency procurement declaration to provide housing for asylum seekers. It included a “conservative estimate” that some 4,000 migrants had entered the shelter system since May, noting that the city doesn’t track their immigration status. Today, the city reckons that number is closer to 9,800, of which 7,300 are still housed in New York City shelters. Mr. Adams has opened 20 more emergency shelters, some in hotels, amid the surge of asylum seekers. Washington, another sanctuary city, faces similar challenges. Its mayor,

Muriel Bowser,

and Mr. Adams have both asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for help.

The objective of Mr. Abbott’s stunt is to push sanctuary-city Democrats into demanding action from the White House on the border crisis. They’re resisting. Mr. Adams has called Mr. Abbott’s actions “horrific.” At the Port Authority, Messrs. Espaillat’s and Castro’s words of welcome soon turned to denunciations of Mr. Abbott for causing a “circus,” as Mr. Espaillat put it. “This is about a governor . . . that wants all of you to cover [for] him,” he said.

When I asked if the Biden administration is doing enough to create a safe and orderly border, Mr. Espaillat conceded that “much needs to be done at the border” but was quick to add that “this is complicated by the arbitrary behavior of Gov. Abbott.” Mr. Castro’s staff reported getting less than 24 hours’ notice before now-daily bus arrivals.

Yet not all the arriving vehicles are “Abbott buses.” The White House calls Mr. Abbott’s busing “shameful,” but the Biden administration appears to be doing the same thing. Mr. Adams has said that buses are sent by the federal government as well as the state. The city of El Paso, which has a Democratic mayor, is chartering buses separate from Mr. Abbott’s operations and soliciting reimbursements from FEMA, according to the Texas Tribune.

Claims of Mr. Abbott’s “human trafficking,” as Mr. Espaillat describes it, are overblown. New York City has more social services than El Paso or Del Rio. It offers better chances for asylum, too. In fiscal 2021, the New York immigration court granted 3 of every 4 asylum claims. Houston’s granted less than 1 in 20.

The true culprits are in Washington, not Austin. Congress hasn’t enacted meaningful reform to accommodate more legal immigration or stabilize the border, and the federal executive branch has fallen down on the job of administering existing law at the border and elsewhere.

From the humanitarian to the economic, welcoming migrants is beneficial, but our current immigration system isn’t built to accommodate the present number of asylum claims. Since the start of fiscal 2022 last Oct. 1, there have been more than 1.9 million migrant encounters at the southern border, already exceeding the number of encounters for all of fiscal 2021 by more than 200,000. Of these, 47.5% were expelled under Title 42, a Trump-era anti-Covid policy, though many try again. The rest are likely to apply for asylum.

The consequences of disorderly policy reach bottom to top. As Customs and Border Protection agents process increasing numbers of asylum seekers, they’re diverted from the field, leaving the border porous to smugglers and cartels and decreasing security for local communities. The system is especially dangerous for migrants. Nearly 750 have died at the border, many drowning or otherwise succumbing to the elements, in fiscal 2022, up 200 from last year.

The dysfunction is also evident in immigration-court backlogs. According to Syracuse University, asylum seekers across the country wait an average of 810 days for an initial hearing. The average tops 900 days in New York state and 1,100 in New York City.

That means New York’s obligations will multiply. After Messrs. Castro and Espaillat concluded their remarks, volunteers told me that three more buses were expected to arrive at noon, breaking a daily record for arrivals. This will be the norm until Washington can manage the crisis at the border. Forcing the issue is in Mr. Adams’s interests, even if he doesn’t like the way Mr. Abbott is doing it.

Ms. Hajjar is the Journal’s Joseph Rago Memorial Fellow.