The City of El Paso sent a busload of 35 Venezuelan migrants to New York City last week, around the same time Gov. Greg Abbott took similar action without warning.
According to a report on Friday from The Texas Tribune, the move from El Paso was meant to “address a growing number of people from the South American country crossing from Mexico.”
Five more busloads of migrants reached New York City on Wednesday after leaving Texas under Gov. Abbott’s orders.
The move has since escalated Abbott’s feud with New York City’s mayor, and it was the largest group of buses to reach the city since the policy was enacted in early August, according to the Associated Press.
El Paso’s City-County Office of Emergency Management arranged the charter to New York City, and it’s one of several that has transported migrants, the Tribune reports.
However, an exact number of how many buses El Paso has sent to the New York City so far hasn’t been released.
Though the busloads arriving in New York City have seemingly put a strain on social services, some said it could benefit the migrants as they safely make their way to their final destinations.
“It’s a journey that we never expected to experience,” Roxeli, a Venezuelan migrant, said in the Tribune’s report. “It was a rough environment. We had to cross oceans, rivers, jungles — countries where perhaps we weren’t welcome.”
Roxeli told the Tribune that she was escaping violence and looking for safety. So, she got onboard the charter bus and joined others to find her next destination.
The federal government has said it will reimburse city governments and nongovernmental organizations who are affected by the migrant crisis, according to the Tribune.
Gov. Abbott initially started the movement after revealing his plan to bus migrants to Washington, D.C. in April.
The arrivals in New York are an expansion of his plan, but it isn’t met without some pushback from political and city leaders.