Los Angeles City Council pushes for probe into Texas bussing of migrants to city

Los Angeles City Council members on Friday pushed for an investigation into the transportation of migrants bussed from Texas to the city this week, days after local lawmakers passed a motion directing the city to draft a “sanctuary city” ordinance.

Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez introduced a motion alongside council members Nithya Raman, Monica Rodriguez and Hugo Soto-Martinez to direct the City Attorney’s office to conduct the investigation of whether human trafficking and kidnapping were committed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. 

A resolution was also introduced calling upon the Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, California State Attorney General Rob Bonta and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to conduct similar investigations for possible crimes committed during the “political stunt,” FOX Los Angeles reported. 

“This competition between Republican Governors to see who can be more racist shows their utter failure to actually govern effectively,” Soto-Martínez said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “These families deserve a full investigation and accountability into any criminal actions or wrongdoing committed by Greg Abbott and his administration.”

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Fox News Digital has reached out to the council members. 

The request came days after 42 migrants arrived in Los Angeles from the Texas-Mexico border. Texas has bused thousands of migrants from the state to “sanctuary” jurisdictions as part of a campaign to bring attention to the southern border and to help border towns often tasked with providing resources. 

“Small Texas border towns remain overrun & overwhelmed because Biden refuses to secure the border,” Abbott said in a Wednesday news release. “LA is a city migrants seek to go to, particularly now its leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary status.”

Other cities like Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., have received illegal immigrants from Texas.  

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In a statement, LA Mayor Karen Bass criticized Abbott, saying he “is using human beings as pawns in his cheap political games.”

“Shortly after I took office, I directed city departments to begin planning in the event Los Angeles was on the receiving end of a despicable stunt that Republican governors have grown so fond of,” she said in a statement. 

Rodriguez, the councilwoman, said Abbott’s actions were an “affront to the ideals of America my father and so many of our country’s service members fought for.”

“Sadly, these acts show the worst of the political exploitation of vulnerable families by a politician that clearly is unable to provide any compassionate or thoughtful solutions,” she added.

Last week, the council passed a motion directing the city to pass a “sanctuary city” ordinance. The ordinance would prohibit any city resources, property or personnel from being used for federal immigration enforcement.