Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) chastised Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) after the governor sent a busload of migrants toward the city while it was bearing the brunt of its first tropical storm in more than 80 years over the weekend.
“It is evil to endanger the lives of vulnerable migrants by sending a bus with families and toddlers on board to a city that at the time was under an unprecedented tropical storm warning,” Bass said in a statement Monday.
The bus departed Texas Sunday, hours before Tropical Storm Hilary swept over Southern California, and arrived in Los Angeles Monday evening, Bass’s office said.
“As I stood with state and local leaders warning Angelenos to stay safe and brace themselves for the worst of the coming storm, the Governor of Texas sent families and toddlers straight for us on a path through extreme weather conditions,” Bass continued.
“If anybody understands the danger of hurricanes and thunderstorms, it’s the Governor of Texas – who has to deal with this threat on an annual basis. This is a despicable act beyond politics,” she said.
The Hill reached out to Abbott for comment.
Abbott has sent eight buses carrying migrants to the city before, each of them with little warning, Bass’s office said.
In a press release in June, Abbott justified the busing policy by saying it was in response to the Biden administration’s lack of action on the border. Texas has sent busloads of migrants to Denver, New York City, Chicago, and Vice President Harris’s house in Washington, D.C.
“Texas’ small border towns remain overwhelmed and overrun by the thousands of people illegally crossing into Texas from Mexico because of President Biden’s refusal to secure the border,” Abbott’s office said in a June release.
“Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status. Our border communities are on the frontlines of President Biden’s border crisis, and Texas will continue providing this much-needed relief until he steps up to do his job and secure the border,” he added.
The busing system has been derided by Democrats nationally, and Bass has previously said she doesn’t plan to change her city’s policy.
“Los Angeles is not a city motivated by hate or fear and we absolutely will not be swayed or moved by petty politicians playing with human lives,” she said in June.
Hurricane Hilary weakened to a tropical storm before it crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into California on Sunday, becoming the first tropical storm to hit the Golden State since 1939. It caused massive flooding in Southern California and southern Nevada, with San Diego and the Sierra Nevada getting the worst of the storm.
Hilary is now classified as a tropical depression, and its path continues north through rural central Nevada toward the Oregon-Idaho border.