Media
for The New York Times: Texas Sent Busloads of Migrants to New York. Now the City Is Paying for Tickets to Canada.
josé a. alvarado jr.
Feb 9, 2023
Summary
Some of the migrants who were bused to New York City are now seeking asylum in Canada, where they hope to have an easier time getting work permits and health insurance.
Mayor Eric Adams had originally welcomed the migrants, but he has since begun echoing the points of southern leaders, saying the city was buckling from the strain of absorbing more than 42,000 people in need.
Now, city officials are assisting the relocation of a growing number of migrants traveling to New York’s northern border, where crossings are surging.
The arrival of the migrants has set off concern among officials in Canada, which has traditionally been welcoming to immigrants but is trying to discourage illegal crossings.Mr. Adams said on Tuesday that the city was not compelling people to leave.“We are not telling anyone to go to any country or state,” he said. “We speak with people and they say their desire is to go somewhere else. So, there’s no coordinated effort.”New York City has been buying tickets for migrants who want to go to other cities to connect with family or friends for months, officials noted.
The city’s policy and Mr. Adams’s remarks underscore how jurisdictions of all political leanings are struggling to accommodate a global migration movement.
Many of the migrants headed to Canada know no one. Some learned about the possibility of traveling there on TikTok. Rosiel Ramirez and her family, who came from Venezuela, first considered it after they received messages from another family they met at a shelter in Brooklyn who recently struck out for Montreal.
Like other migrants, Ms. Ramirez, 26, said she was attracted to Canada because it is speedier at granting work permits to asylum seekers than the United States, where legal backlogs mean getting working papers can take years.
On Saturday evening, Ms. Ramirez and her family — her husband, their three children, her mother, her brother, his wife and their son — made their way to Port Authority Bus Terminal. National Guard troops, who had set up a special waiting area for migrants, gave them tickets for an overnight bus ride to Plattsburgh.
Ms. Ramirez had first arrived at Port Authority five months ago, when Texas officials were busing sometimes thousands of migrants a week to cities like New York and Washington, D.C.
She and her husband did not find stable work to help support their children, Rose, 10, Samara, 2, and Amber, who is 2 months old. When they heard the city was paying for bus tickets north, they decided to leave for good.
Photographs and Video for The New York Times, with words by Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura.
Why New York City Is Buying Bus Tickets for Migrants Headed to CanadaSome of the migrants who were bused to New York City are now seeking asylum in Canada, where they hope to have an easier time getting work permits and health insurance.
Nytimes.com
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