Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) claimed that the mayor of New York City had gone after “the wrong party” over a “baseless” lawsuit, suing 17 Texas busing companies for $700 million.
The Texas governor’s statement comes after Mayor Eric Adams sued the transportation companies on Thursday, arguing that $700 million would cover the Big Apple’s costs for caring for the roughly 33,600 foreign nationals bused there after illegally crossing the southern border. Abbott, meanwhile, has claimed that the lawsuit is merely a “political statement” and that he is not worried about it at all.
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“What the mayor did, the mayor sued the wrong party,” Abbott said on Fox News Sunday. “If the mayor really is trying to cut down on the number of illegal immigrants coming into New York, he needs to be suing Joe Biden — not these bus companies — because it’s Joe Biden and Joe Biden’s policies that’s causing the massive multimillion influx into the United States that leads to many of them wanting to go to New York.”
Abbott also predicted that Adams would lose his “baseless” lawsuit due to immigrants “being authorized by the Biden administration” to be in the United States illegally. The Texas governor added that he hopes Adams is forced to pay the legal fees that stem from this lawsuit.
The lawsuit from Adams is one of two lawsuits the state of Texas faces concerning illegal immigration, with the other from the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ’s lawsuit is over a state law that makes illegally crossing the border a state crime that is subject to imprisonment or deportation.
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New York City suing Texas bus companies comes after Adams stated last week that there has been a “robbery pattern” of crimes committed by a “number of migrants.” Crime statistics from the New York Police Department show that vehicle grand larcenies and felony assaults increased 11.3% and 6.9%, respectively, in October 2023.
In December, Adams stated that major cities in the U.S. should not be “handling national problems” about illegal immigration. The month prior, he was joined by fellow mayors of major cities, including Chicago, Denver, Houston, and Los Angeles, who penned a letter to President Joe Biden asking for a meeting to address the migrant crisis.
