Tennessee McDonald’s employee calls police after migrants begin panhandling during stop on way to East Coast

A Tennessee McDonald’s employee said she called police after a bus of migrants headed to the East Coast from Texas pulled into a Chattanooga neighborhood for a pit stop and some migrants began panhandling. 

“I had to get the police to remove them from the premises, which they turn and started sitting over at the gas station. After that we haven’t seen them for a while,” McDonald’s employee Nyree Jones told WTVC.

Buses carrying migrants from Texas to Washington, D.C., and New York City have been pulling off in Chattanooga at a Comfort Inn & Suites motel as a pit stop before carrying on with the journey, Chattanooga Police told WTVC. 

Jones said she was motivated to call police on Friday after customers became bothered by some young migrants who were asking for food and money. 

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“The two young ones kept on going from here to over there, to the gas station, just trying to get money from people,” Jones said. 

The Chattanooga Police Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been sending buses of migrants to Washington, D.C., since April after conservative leaders across the country threatened to send migrants to liberal cities and vacation hot spots as the immigration crisis continues along the border. 

More than 6,000 migrants have been bused from Texas to Washington, D.C., as of this month. Buses sent to New York City first began arriving last weekend. 

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The matter has set off a firestorm of condemnation from liberal leaders in the Big Apple and the nation’s capital. NYC Mayor Eric Adams called the plan “horrific” and argued that some migrants on the buses did not want to go to the city. 

Abbott and his office have issued repeated statements that Democratic leaders denouncing the plan should speak with President Biden about securing the border. 

“If the mayor wants a solution to this crisis, he should call on President Biden to take immediate action to secure the border—something the President continues failing to do,” he added. 

The office also says the migrants “willingly chose to go to New York City, having signed a voluntary consent waiver, available in multiple languages, upon boarding that they agreed on the destination.”

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The Dade County Sheriff’s office in Georgia posted to Facebook last week that a bus of migrants headed to Washington, D.C., from Texas had stopped in a small town called Rising Fawn, where migrants relayed that they intended to end their journey and not continue to the nation’s capital. 

“Based off Sheriff Cross’ conversation with the bus driver, it appeared as if the illegal immigrants were being encouraged to exit the bus at this location, with the impression that Chattanooga was within walking distance,” the post read.

The post said the sheriff got a translator involved and told the migrants and bus staff that he was concerned that the small town would lack adequate resources for the migrants. 

“After a short discussion with all the parties involved, the illegal immigrants chose to get back on the bus and continue their journey out of Dade County, and on to Washington, DC,” the post reads. “Sheriff Cross spoke to the owner of the bus line and requested that he encourage his drivers not to drop off illegal immigrants in the rural areas of Dade County, where they have no resources, but preferably in a larger city, where resources are more readily available.”