Illinois governor urges Abbott to stop busing migrants amid 'life-threatening' winter weather
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) asked his Texas counterpart, Gov. Greg Abbott (R), in a letter Friday to stop busing migrants amid “life-threatening” winter weather in the Midwest.
“You are now sending asylum seekers from Texas to the Upper Midwest in the middle of winter — many without coats, without shoes to protect them from the snow — to a city whose shelters are already overfilled with migrants you sent here,” Pritzker said in the letter shared online by reporters.
“Chicago's temperatures this weekend are forecast to drop below zero,” Pritzker continued. “Your callousness, sending buses and planes full of migrants in this weather, is now life-threatening to every one of the arrivals. Hundreds of children's and families' health and survival are at risk due to your actions.”
He isn’t the only high-profile Democrat to criticize Abbott for his most recent actions moving migrants out of Texas.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams — who has been feuding with the governor for months — slammed Abbott for his "mean-spiritedness" earlier this week.
“We reached out and tried to coordinate with just the mean-spiritedness of this governor who has, his intentionality of just placing people on buses, compelling them to leave the city,” Adams said Thursday. “That is why we’re taking legal action."
"When you look at what he’s doing, history is going to really reflect how much he has devastated the lives of people," he added.
The Big Apple mayor filed a lawsuit on Jan. 4 against at least 17 charter companies that assisted Abbott in the transportation of migrants to the city — amid an ongoing debate over President Biden's handling of an influx of migrants at the southern border. In the suit, Adams is seeking $708 million to cover the costs of caring for the migrants over the past 20 months.
Abbott denounced the lawsuit, claiming it is a violation of the Constitution.
“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,” he argued in response. “As such, they have constitutional authority to travel across the country that Mayor Adams is interfering with.”
“If the Mayor persists in this lawsuit, he may be held legally accountable for his violations,” he said.
The Texas governor also recently said his state is not utilizing guns to deter migrants because the Biden administration would sue the Lone Star state for “murder.”