NEW JERSEY (PIX11) — It’s a new year and a new chapter in a year’s old saga involving the migrant crisis in New York City.
Buses are bringing asylum seekers to northern New Jersey, apparently to avoid Mayor Eric Adams’s executive order, which restricts when bus arrivals can happen in the city. Now, hundreds of migrants are arriving by train at Penn Station from the Garden State.
“When the police officers asked the [bus] drivers, ‘What are you doing here?’ they said, ‘Waiting for the trains,'” Edison Mayor Sam Joshi told NewsNation affiliate WPIX.
Chaperones then assisted the migrants with train tickets to Penn Station in Midtown, Manhattan. Joshi believes it is an apparent effort to skirt Adams’ order to block unannounced buses with fines and arrests.
“When our officers stopped the bus, we don’t know if they’re carrying weapons, they have no ID and it’s completely unacceptable,” Joshi said.
Officials say roughly 10 buses with 400 migrants have gone to Edison, Fanwood, Secaucus, and Trenton.
Joshi said he chartered a bus to send any asylum seekers back across the southern border.
“We don’t have the capacity or resources to take in migrants,” he explained.
Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli said Adams’ order is too stringent. Adams announced last week that the order is necessary to control the chaos.
Immigration advocate Power Malu believes it is an effort to stem their arrivals.
“I call it just a bogus attempt at further harassing the migrants and those bringing them to NYC,” Malu said.
Migrants are also being bused from Fanwood, according to the town’s mayor. Mayor Colleen Mahr said she was not made aware of the buses coming ahead of time and issued a statement saying, “I find it absolutely deplorable that they are being shuffled around like cattle. This is a humanitarian crisis in which the governors of all affected states, the White House and Congress need to come together to find a solution.”
A City Hall spokesperson said in a statement on Monday that it is encouraging other mayors to do the same.
Gov. Phil Murphy’s office said it is coordinating with federal and New York partners to try and better prepare for this new development.