Fifth bus of undocumented migrants from Texas arrives in Los Angeles

Dozens of undocumented migrants who boarded a bus in Texas arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday morning, making it the fifth bus that has been sent from the U.S.-Mexico border to the California city in over a month. 

Around 48 migrants arrived at Los Angeles’ Union Station at around 11:30 a.m. after their hours-long journey from Texas. The group of migrants included 18 unaccompanied minors. 

The migrants were welcomed by the L.A. Welcome Collective, a coalition of organizations helping the incoming migrants, and were relocated to Cathedral High School in Chinatown, where they were medically evaluated and provided food. 

"The City has continued to work with City Departments, the County, and a coalition of nonprofit organizations, in addition to our faith partners, to execute a plan set in place earlier this year," Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement. "As we have before, when we became aware of the bus yesterday, we activated our plan."

Four days earlier another bus was sent from Brownsville, Texas to Los Angeles carrying another 44 migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela. Similarly, a bus carrying 42 migrants arrived on June 12, another carrying 41 migrants arrived on July 1, and a third one carrying 30 migrants arrived on July 13. 

Beginning in Spring of 2022, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott has sent more than 22,000 migrants from the Texas border to Democractic-run cities, including New York, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, and 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 said in a press release in June. 

“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.