Another Bus Carrying Migrants Is Sent From Texas To Los Angeles

For the third time in a little over three weeks, Texas has sent migrants on an overnight bus ride from the state's border to Los Angeles.

According to the L.A. Welcomes Collective, a network of immigrant rights advocates and faith organizations including the Archdiocese of L.A., the migrants arrived at Union Station around 12:40 p.m. It was the second bus to arrive from Brownsville, Texas; the previous bus from there arrived July 1.

Advocates said the Norteño Express charter bus was delayed by overheating as it made its way across the blistering Southwest.

"I think they were in the bus for about 30 hours plus," said Martha Arevalo with the Central American Resource Center, or CARECEN, one of the groups in the collective. "It was a bus that was malfunctioning a little bit, so it took a lot longer than expected. So, they were hungry, they were hot, they were thirsty."

Migrants from Haiti, Venezuela and Mexico

They said 30 people, including six children, traveled to Los Angeles, and that five others who boarded in Texas were dropped off at destinations along the way. Arevalo said the migrants on board this time were from Haiti, Venezuela and Mexico.

The white charter bus pulled in to the rear of the train station, where its passengers were promptly loaded onto two city Department of Transportation shuttles and whisked off to St. Anthony’s Croatian Catholic Church in nearby Chinatown. There, a number of local groups were on hand to provide food, water and medical assistance and connect them with local relatives. Some family members arrived soon afterward and waited outside.

One was Gladys Leon of Glassell Park, who came to pick up a cousin and her family.

Gladys Leon, a Glassell Park resident, waits in a parking garage at St. Anthony's Croatian Church in Chinatown for the arrival of a cousin and two children who were among 30 migrants bused to L.A. from Brownsville, Texas.

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Leslie Berestein Rojas

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LAist

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She said her cousin, who was traveling with her two children and possibly her husband, came from Guerrero, Mexico and was seeking asylum due to violence there.

After being admitted to the United States, they were offered bus tickets to Los Angeles — Leon wasn't sure who offered them the tickets, but that they gladly took them.

Her cousin called her early Wednesday morning before they departed Brownsville, to say "that she was already on her way, and she didn't know when she was going to get here."

According to immigrant rights advocates, most of the passengers have family in the L.A. region, as did those who arrived on the two previous buses.

Migrant drop-offs continue

This is the latest in a string of migrant drop-offs by bus and plane in Democratic-led cities and states, orchestrated by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his fellow Republican, Florida Gov. Ron De Santis. These have included migrants being sent to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts and being left in front of Vice President Kamala Harris’ home in freezing weather on Christmas Eve.

More recently, migrants were flown by the state Florida from Texas to Sacramento, prompting calls from state leaders for an investigation into what California Attorney General Rob Bonta referred to as "state-sanctioned kidnapping."

In some instances, migrants have reported being duped into taking these trips, which have been widely criticized by Democratic leaders as political theater that takes advantage of vulnerable individuals.

But migrants on the recent buses to Los Angeles have reported differently: That they were asked once in the United States where they were going, and offered tickets to their destination, which they voluntarily accepted.

'We saw it as a help'

Maurini, a woman who arrived in L.A. with her husband July 1 from Brownsville, told LAist, “We saw it as a help, because it was free, and they were going to transport us to where we were going.”

The legal firm working with the couple did not want to use Maurini's last name for safety reasons; She and her husband are seeking political asylum from Venezuela's repressive regime.

Maurini described how after they were admitted into the country, they were taken by U.S. border officials to a facility near the bus station in Brownsville, where they were interviewed then offered free tickets to L.A. The couple were going to stay with a friend in Riverside County.

They had to wait a little more than a week until there were enough passengers bound for Los Angeles for a bus to leave. Maurini did not know if it was a government agency or a nonprofit that provided the tickets.

Local immigrant advocates said the city of Brownsville has taken an active role in helping migrants get to their destinations in an organized manner.

"I know that the city of Brownsville has tried very hard to make sure that they are treated humanely," Arevalo said, adding that the city has cooperated with advocacy groups "to make sure that the bus is coming and to assure us that they've done what they can to intervene, to make sure that they have food and water."

Assistance to asylum-seekers

Arevalo with CARECEN said the welcome center at the church would offer as much assistance as possible before the migrants went on their way with family or friends to await their court dates.

"We have a safe space where they can at least breathe and feel that they're safe, and communicate with their families," she said. "We also have mental health services, we have general health services, and also legal services. We're connecting them with legal services for their immigration cases."

The main goal right now, Arevalo said, "is to reunite people with their families. If they have a family here or a sponsor here, to reunite them as soon as possible."

She said while most would stay locally, "there are some people that are going to have to travel outside of Los Angeles to be reunited with their families. And so we're trying to make those arrangements as well."