Mayor Eric Adams had a warning for bus operators transporting thousands of migrants to New York City: We will fine and sue you if you don’t warn us you’re coming.
But only three buses seem to have responded to his December mandate, newly released public records show.
Adams issued an executive order late last year, requiring buses transporting migrants to alert city officials 32 hours ahead of their arrival and limited the hours those buses could enter the city. It was among a series of measures the city took to slow the arrival of roughly 170,000 migrants to the five boroughs since April 2022.
But emails obtained by Gothamist through a Freedom of Information request show that only three buses gave notice of their arrival in January, including two that listed the number of migrants on board as required by City Hall.
A Texas-based bus employee who sent the notices on behalf of Lily’s Bus Lines and Transportes Regiomontanos, Inc., also told Gothamist the system the Adams administration set up wasn’t initially working for those who wanted to follow the rules.
City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak confirmed the city has only received a handful of notices but said many buses never arrived in the city. She added that fewer buses have been coming and few, if any, have violated the new measures. The city stopped tracking buses arriving at Port Authority last summer.
Mamelak said Adams’ executive order was meant to “reduce the inhumane way people were coming here,” referring to instances where migrant families arrived at all hours of the day, poorly dressed for cold weather conditions, sending city employees and volunteers scrambling to find them shelter.
But the arrivals are “no longer happening in a manner” that they were, Mamelak said..
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began sending migrants to New York City and other northern states in 2022, testing the city’s progressive politics and often putting Adams, a moderate Democrat, at odds with his party on immigration and…
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