Manuel Castro, New York City's commissioner of Immigrant Affairs, told CNN it is unacceptable for the state of Texas to send migrants who willingly board buses to head to sanctuary cities as illegal crossings remain historically high at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Hundreds of migrants, who were processed and released by Border Patrol after illegally crossing the border, have been sent to New York City by the state of Texas in an effort to relieve pressure off of the smaller border towns.
"You know, we understand the needs, the special needs that immigrants have. New York City is 60 percent immigrant or children of immigrants. I, myself, am an immigrant. I crossed the border when I was 5 years old. I had the same experience with my family. So we’re no strangers of the immigrant community with a variety of needs, so it’s quite interesting when we’re told that we in New York City, the home of the Statue of Liberty, of Ellis Island and millions of immigrants don’t have this experience," Castro told CNN's John Berman.
"But, unfortunately, what we actually have here is a right-wing political extremist crisis. Unfortunately, Governor Abbott is fomenting anti-immigrant and anti-Latino hate, which impacts all of us, whether we arrived here today or decades ago, which is why we’re responding this strongly to what Governor Abbott and others are doing," he continued. "We’ve heard of the pejorative, illegal use to describe asylum-seekers, which is a lie. Asylum-seekers go through a process, they have a background check, they’re given documents at the border that allows them to be in the country as they seek asylum."
"We’ve learned from history that the use of human beings for political purposes should be a line not to be crossed, and what Governor Abbott is doing should not be tolerated and we should not tolerate others doing the same and following suit," he concluded.
Mayor Eric Adams (D) declined Abbott's invitation to visit the southern border to see the border crisis firsthand.