LA City Council votes to investigate Texas' migrant bus shipment; criminal probe of governor
The eleventh migrant bus over the last 2 ½ months from Texas arrived at Union station Wednesday morning as the Los Angeles Ctiy Council was discussing if the city can sue the state of Texas and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for one particular transport.
The City Council moved forward in unanimously approving a motion asking the City Attorney's Office to investigate whether the Texas governor committed any crimes when he sent 42 migrants on a 23-hour bus ride to downtown L.A. in June.
The motion requests the city attorney to begin proceedings on any potential civil legal action that could be taken against the state of Texas, Abbott, or any other entity involved in the planning and action of busing migrants to Union Station, where they arrived on June 14.
Texas has sent a total of 11 buses of migrants to Los Angeles, beginning with the June 14 arrival, containing a total of 435 migrants.
Wednesday's bus had 35 asylum seekers from Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Russia and Venezuela, according to the Coalition for
Humane Immigrant Rights.
Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has sent similar shipments of migrants to New York, have defended their decisions, saying their states are overwhelmed by an influx of undocumented immigrants, with Abbott citing the Los
Angeles council's recent decision to declare L.A. a "Sanctuary City."
"The competition between these Republican governors about who could be more racist, I think, is just an utter failure and shows clearly that they do not have any intention to govern effectively," said Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez prior to Wednesday's vote.
The councilman noted that a couple weeks ago, as Los Angeles was preparing for the arrival of Tropical Storm Hilary, Abbott "knowingly" sent a bus containing migrants, come of whom were children, to Los Angeles.
"Now how heartless do you have to be to send toddlers and small children knowing that everything that the city was preparing for an unprecedented state of emergency," Soto-Martinez said.
"The callous and disregard for lives of these families deserves their full investigation and accountability into the criminal actions of wrongdoing of Gov. Greg Abbott."
The council also approved a resolution calling upon Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, state Attorney General
Rob Bonta and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate and report on the same issue.
The resolution also calls upon county, state and federal government to "support the housing, placement and necessary resources to ensure a dignified welcome to Los Angeles for the migrants."
"We hear about the buses headed our way when they're on the way. We have no idea who's going to be on the bus, how many people it is or what condition they're going to be in when they get here," Mayor Karen Bass said. "Sometimes they haven't had any food, barely had enough water."
