NYC Challenges Texas with 708 Million Lawsuit for Migrant Care Costs and Abbott Fires Back

Photo byOffice of U.S. House Speaker, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

According to a complaint filed on Thursday, New York City is suing Texas charter bus firms for more than $700 million, claiming the money is needed to pay for housing and medical care for migrants who have been brought to the city from Texas.

The complaint was filed in the New York Supreme Court on Wednesday. It names seventeen charter bus companies from Texas, Louisiana, Ohio, and Indiana. The lawsuit seeks $708 million in damages to cover the cost of caring for at least 33,600 asylum seekers who have entered the city since 2022.

According to the mayor's office, the lawsuit aims to compensate past and future expenses for food, shelter, and medical care for migrants transferred from Texas as well as future costs for migrants presently present and those who may be carried in the future.

According to the mayor, more than 33,600 migrants have already been brought from Texas to New York mayor.

"New York City has and will always do our part to manage this humanitarian crisis, but we cannot bear the costs of reckless political ploys from the state of Texas alone," Adams said in a statement. "Today, we are taking legal action against 17 companies that have taken part in Texas Governor Abbott’s scheme to transport tens of thousands of migrants to New York City in an attempt to overwhelm our social services system."

Texas Gov. Abbott stated that Mayor Adams is "interfering" with the migrants' "constitutional authority" to travel.

"This lawsuit is baseless and deserves to be sanctioned. It's clear that Mayor Adams knows nothing about the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, or about the constitutional right to travel that has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court. Every migrant bused or flown to New York City did so voluntarily, after having been authorized by the Biden Administration to remain in the United States," Abbott said in a statement.

The New York suit cites Section 149 of the New York Social Services Law, which says, any person “who knowingly brings, or causes to be brought, a needy person from out of the state into this state for the purpose of making him a public charge” will be obligated “to convey such person out of the state or to support him at his own expense.”