Texas has paid more than $124M to bus 100K migrants to sanctuary cities

AUSTIN (NEXSTAR) — Texas has spent more than $124 million busing migrants to sanctuary cities, according to records obtained by NEXSTAR.

As of Jan. 10, Texas has bused more than 100,000 migrants from border communities to Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles, according to documents obtained by Nexstar. He paid $124,603,616.19. This equates to 2,245 buses per year. To date, each bus carries an average of 45 migrants.

Nexstar obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information request to the Texas Emergency Management Agency, which is responsible for the effort. A majority of the payments were made to Wynne Transportation LLC and a portion to Transportation Management Services Inc.

The program is part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star,” a multibillion-dollar effort to slow border crossings that will send migrants to other U.S. cities. The Republican governor began sending buses of immigrants out of the state in April 2022, saying it would ease the burden of immigration on Texas cities.

Who pays for the bus fare?

Taxpayers are paying about 99.6% of the total cost of these buses, which comes from money already earmarked by the Texas Legislature for border security under Operation Lone Star.

Abbott created a donation portal to supplement state funding when the program first started. As of early December 2023, the state has raised $460,196 to help pay for the buses. According to the governor’s office.

The migrants are being put on the buses voluntarily and are not paying the state for their transportation. The documents do not detail the cost per passenger, as migrants do not pay for their tickets.

Nexstar seeks to obtain up-to-date detailed invoices for the costs incurred on each bus.in Bus records from TDEM, September 2022 That cost, which included the number of miles traveled by the bus, the driver’s salary and the amount billed to the state for security personnel, was the most expensive, according to documents obtained by Nexstar. At the time, a senior TDEM spokesperson told Nexstar that the state believes security is a necessary precaution to be taken to protect “passengers and drivers during cross-border travel.”