Nearly 52,000 people from the border area were sent by bus to towns across the country that call themselves “sanctuary cities” by Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
In April 2022, Governor Abbott told the Texas Division of Emergency Management to start Operation Lone Star, which will transport refugees from border towns to safe cities by bus. Abbott said that since then, almost 52,000 refugees have been taken to six sanctuary cities.
The numbers below come from Abbott’s office as of October 5:
- Since April 2022, more than 12,500 migrants have been sent to Washington, D.C.
- Since August 2022, more than 18,500 migrants have been sent to New York City.
- Since August 2022, more than 13,500 migrants have been sent to Chicago.
- Since November 2022, more than 3,200 migrants have been sent to Philadelphia.
- Since May 18, more than 3,200 migrants have been sent to Denver.
- Since June 14, more than 940 immigrants have been sent to Los Angeles.
In addition to the migrant busing program, in which migrants choose to leave Texas on their own, Abbott’s office said that nearly 480,000 migrants were arrested. This caused more than 34,800 criminals to be caught. 31,800 felonies were charged in the cases.
Unofficial Border Patrol reports looked at by Breitbart Texas show that of the 218,000 people arrested in September, nearly 134,000 were caught in five Texas-based areas. This is 61%. This meant that over 1.2 million of the 2.045 million arrests made along the southwest border happened in Texas in FY23. This was 60% of the total number of arrests for the nine border areas. The end of FY23 was on September 30.
