New York Supreme Court Rules Texas Can Continue Busing Migrants to Big Apple

The New York Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit filed by Mayor Eric Adams attempting to block Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s migrant busing program. The ruling allows the State of Texas to continue busing migrants to New York City.

In a post on social media, Governor Abbott vowed to continue busing migrants from the Texas border region to New York City and other sanctuary cities. The ruling by the New York Supreme Court is the second legal victory for Abbott in as many days.

A lawsuit filed by Mayor Adams and the New York Civil Liberties Union accused the bus companies contracted by the Texas Division of Emergency Management of violating the State’s Social Services Law by dropping off migrants “without providing a means of support,” CBS News reported. The New York Supreme Court rejected the city’s request for an injunction.

The lawsuit also asked for $700 million to compensate the city for the costs of shelter, food, and health care, the article states.

According to the Office of the Texas Governor, Texas has bussed nearly 46,000 migrants to New York City since August of 2022.

LAW360 reported:

The Commissioner for the New York City Department of Social Services had asked the court to enforce against eight companies Section 149 of the New York Social Services Law, which states that anyone who knowingly brings an out-of-state “needy person” into New York for the purpose of making them a public charge should be obligated to bring them out of New York or monetarily support them.

However, New York Supreme Court Justice Mary V. Rosado ruled Monday that the nation’s high court ruled in Edwards v. California that a similar California law was unconstitutional because the transportation of indigent persons from state to state fell within Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.

“The mass migration of people within the country, which the commissioner seeks to chill or prevent, is an issue reserved by the Constitution for Congress, lest the United States fall to a regime of Balkanization with each state setting fort a patchwork of inconsistent criteria for crossing state lines,” Judge Rosado wrote in the order.

The New York case is The Commissioner of the New York City Department of Social Services v. Buckeye Coach LLC et al., case number 150122/2024, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, LAW360 reported.

This is the second court victory in as many days for Governor Abbott. On Tuesday, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Texas can keep the buoys Governor Greg Abbott ordered installed in the Rio Grande, Breitbart Texas reported.

“Biden tried to remove them. I fought to keep them in the water,” Abbott posted on social media. “That is exactly where they will stay.”

Following an en banc appeal, the court’s majority opinion overturned a lower court’s preliminary injunction and wrote, “We hold that the district court clearly erred in finding that the United States will likely prove that the barrier is in a navigable stretch of the Rio Grande. We cannot square the district court’s findings and conclusions with over a century’s worth of precedent.”

The full court’s ruling also overturned an earlier ruling by the three-judge panel, which initially upheld the lower court’s ruling.

The case now goes back to the lower court in the Western District of Texas, where a trial on the matter is planned for August 6 in Austin, Texas.

The case is USA v. Greg Abbott, No. 23-50632, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit en banc.