New York Mayor Eric Adams has filed a lawsuit against 17 charter bus companies that transported migrants to his city from Texas.
The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Manhattan, is seeking $708 million — the amount the city says it has spent on housing and providing services to the migrants over the last two years.
Over 33,000 people have been bussed from Texas to New York as part of Governor Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star.
Operation Lone Star was launched in 2021 to ramp up security along the border and ship migrants to sanctuary cities.
In a press release about the lawsuit, the mayor's office said that the companies violated a state law from the 1800s against transporting someone likely to seek government assistance from another state to cover their expenses.
"Since the spring of 2022, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has admitted to facilitating the transport of more than 33,600 migrants to New York City without having the companies transporting those migrants pay for the cost of continued care in violation of New York's Social Services Law," the press release said. "Today's suit seeks to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars incurred to care for all these individuals, costs moving forward for any of those migrants still in New York City's care, and costs for all those who are transported to New York City from Texas in the future as part of Governor Abbott's plan."
New York Social Services Law § 149 states that "[a]ny person who knowingly brings, or causes to be brought, a needy person from out of state into this state for the purpose of making him a public charge…shall be obligated to convey such person out of state or support him at his own expense."
Mayor Adams claimed that Governor Abbott is deliberately trying to "overwhelm" the city's social services system.
"New York City has and will always do our part to manage this humanitarian crisis, but we cannot bear the costs of reckless political ploys from the state of Texas alone," said Adams in a statement. "Today, we are taking legal action against 17 companies that have taken part in Texas Governor Abbott's scheme to transport tens of thousands of migrants to New York City in an attempt to overwhelm our social services system. These companies have violated state law by not paying the cost of caring for these migrants, and that's why we are suing to recoup approximately $700 million already spent to care for migrants sent here in the last two years by Texas. Governor Abbott's continued use of migrants as political pawns is not only chaotic and inhumane but makes clear he puts politics over people. Today's lawsuit should serve as a warning to all those who break the law in this way."
New York Governor Kathy Hochul also weighed in on the lawsuit, saying, "Governor Abbott continues to use human beings as political pawns, and it's about time that the companies facilitating his actions take responsibility for their role in this ongoing crisis."
Hochul continued, "If they are getting paid to break the law by transporting people in need of public assistance into our state, they should be on the hook for the cost of sheltering those individuals – not just passing that expense along to hard-working New Yorkers. I'm proud to support the mayor's lawsuit."
Abbott responded to the lawsuit by saying, "Every migrant bused or flown to New York City did so voluntarily, after having been authorized by the Biden Administration to remain in the United States."
"As such, they have constitutional authority to travel across the country that Mayor Adams is interfering with," Abbott continued, according to a report from the Associated Press.
