Texas has spent millions to bus migrants – and taxpayers are footing the bill
Austin, Texas - As Texas Governor Gregg Abbott continues his campaign of sending migrants by bus to Democrat-run cities, it turns out Texas taxpayers are footing the bill, which has already cost millions.
According to The Texas Tribune, The Texas Newsroom recently obtained records under the Texas Public Information Act showing that as of January 24, the state has spent $148 million on the effort to bus migrants away from the Texas-Mexico border.
The amount that continues to grow every day.
Since he launched the initiative in April 2022, Abbott has transported over 102,000 migrants to Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.
The campaign has been met with mixed feelings. While critics have argued that the governor has used migrants as political pawns to push his agenda, some see it as beneficial for them, as the free trip could potentially move them to a city better equipped with resources to assist them.
Yet Abbott has been clear that his intentions are not to help migrants, as he sees their arrival on Texas soil as an "invasion," as the amount of border crossings have reached an average of over 2,000 per day in some months.
He has also been in conflict with the federal government over how to handle the crisis.
The US Supreme Court decided last month to allow the Biden administration to remove concertina wire barriers Texas has installed at the border, which Abbott indicated he does not intend to comply with.
Cover photo: Collage: Sergio FLORES / AFP