Officials in New Jersey are ensuring that the Big Apple does not dump the out-of-control migrant problem on the Garden State, and are even deploying cops to herd asylum applicants from the US border into Manhattan-bound NJ Transit trains as soon as they get off their busses.
The battle across the Hudson comes as New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy tries to unite the state’s mayors, while New York City Mayor Eric Adams begs Murphy to shoulder at least some of the migratory weight that is burying the five boroughs.
“New Jersey just said, f-k this,” a source familiar with the matter told The Washington Post on Wednesday. “New Jersey Transit cops were waiting for them in Secaucus to show them how to get on the train to New York.”
Several Garden State sources described the scene as chaotic in recent days, as roughly two dozen migrant busses arrived at train terminals with “chaperones” — with NJ Transit cops then taking over and guiding nearly 1,000 asylum seekers across the river.
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So far, the procedure has been a success, with no migrants opting to remain in Jersey.
According to data seen by The Post, 23 buses have dropped off 1,017 asylum seekers in New Jersey since Saturday, with 953 boarding trains into Manhattan and the rest traveling elsewhere.
The new twist in the old situation is Adams’ decision last week to issue an executive order barring the influx of migrant buses from the border, most of which are from Texas.
Adams requested 32-hour notice before the buses arrived in Manhattan, and they could only do so at one location on West 41st Street between 8:30 a.m. and noon.
However, charter bus firms took a detour, dumping hundreds of migrants down at unsuspecting New Jersey stations in Secaucus, Fanwood, Edison, and Trenton, where they were led onto Manhattan-bound transit trains not covered by Adams’ order.
The communities in New Jersey were caught off guard by the sudden arrivals during the holiday weekend, sparking a quick condemnation from local officials such as Edison Mayor Sam Joshi, who threatened to bus them back to Texas.
Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy of New York City asserted repeatedly that the Adams administration had contacted “every town” about a transportation line to avoid surprising the suburbs.
That made headlines in Jersey, where municipal officials claimed they had received no earlier information.
“There was — of course — no way of knowing where Governor Abbott would choose to send migrants before the order was issued,” City Hall spokesman Kayla Mamelak said. “Which is why our outreach continues to additional localities.”
Adams has also pushed other adjacent municipalities with easy access to New York City to join his campaign to issue orders limiting arrival times — but his pleas have gone unheeded.
Staffers said he was supposed to call Murphy this week, but neither side will confirm whether or not the conversation had place.
Murphy told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday that his state would continue to push migrants to Manhattan because “NYC is where there is federal support and resources available.”
“This is a manageable situation and I expect it will continue to be so,” he said.
Murphy’s remarks on government aid may come as a surprise to the Empire State, where Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have spent months asking the White House to assist in crisis management.
Local officials in New Jersey, on the other hand, have stated that they are unprepared to deal with the migrants.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Secaucus Town Administrator Gary Jeffas told The Washington Post.
“For us here, any bus traveling into the train station, how do we know when they will be here so we could even have people there to turn them away,” Jeffrey asked. “It would have to be a design beyond Secaucus.”
Adams reportedly attempted to persuade Murphy to issue an executive order similar to the one he pushed through in New York, but the notion was never up during a conference call with state and municipal leaders in New Jersey on Wednesday, according to sources.
“It’s just so different [in New Jersey] with buses coming in and dropping off at area train stations,” Mr. Jeffas added. “Wouldn’t any bus coming into the train station have to stop for us?”
“How do we know when they’ll arrive so we can have people ready to turn them away?” “We don’t have centers open 24 hours a day,” he remarked.
Even if they wanted to, Jeffas pointed out, they don’t have jurisdiction – that belongs to Murphy and Trenton politicians.
Since the spring of 2022, about 162,000 migrants have arrived in New York City, completely overwhelming city shelters and budgets, and forcing City Hall to make harsh service cuts.
Many of them are from Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott continues to send migrants who enter the state to sanctuary cities such as New York and Chicago.
Abbott claimed earlier this week on social media that he had moved 95,000 asylum seekers north, including 33,600 to New York since August 2022, and that he will continue to do so.
“Sanctuary cities like NYC & Chicago have seen only a FRACTION of what overwhelmed Texas border towns face daily,” he wrote in a post on X. “We will continue our transportation mission until Biden reverses course on his open border policies.