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Elie Mystal: Eric Adams's Suit Against Texas Bus Companies Is an Embarrassment
The NationArchived: https://archive.ph/olnQJ
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Governor Kathy Hochul seem to be going out of their way to prove that Texas Governor Greg Abbott is right about the hypocrisy of Democrats on immigration. The operating theory of Abbott and a host of conservatives is that liberals wax poetic about human rights and dignity when helping new Americans is somebody else’s problem, but turn into rank protectionists when desperate migrants are dropped off at their front door.
Toward that end, for the past year and a half, Abbott has been busing migrants to New York, Chicago, and other big cities run by Democratic mayors. The stunt is ghoulish. It involves treating people—human beings who are already vulnerable and living on the margins of existence—as political footballs to be punted around the country. Abbott puts these people on a bus and sends them thousands of miles away, into cities they are wholly unfamiliar with, all to make blue-city mayors squeal as people in need of shelter and services descend on their already overstretched social safety nets.
And squeal they do. Every time a busload of migrants disembarks at Port Authority, Adams and Hochul whine like stuck pigs. They don’t seem to appreciate that complaining about the Abbott charade all but ensures it will continue. The only currency of value in MAGA-world is “owning the libs,” and every time Democrats react it only strengthens the conservative proposition that liberals are hypocrites whose commitments to human rights don’t extend to their own backyards.
Adams has been trying to figure out a way to make Texas stop. Last week, his administration filed a lawsuit against the bus companies transporting these immigrants in an attempt to recoup some of the money New York City has spent trying to provide for their needs. The lawsuit is enthusiastically supported by Governor Hochul.
From where I sit, this lawsuit is an embarrassment. Politically, it proves Abbott’s point. Socially, it treats sheltering and serving human beings as “damages” that the city should be compensated for. And legally, hoo boy, trying to bank a shot at Texas off of bus companies involves the kind of novel, untested, and probably unconstitutional legal arguments that would make former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani proud.
Toward that end, for the past year and a half, Abbott has been busing migrants to New York, Chicago, and other big cities run by Democratic mayors. The stunt is ghoulish. It involves treating people—human beings who are already vulnerable and living on the margins of existence—as political footballs to be punted around the country. Abbott puts these people on a bus and sends them thousands of miles away, into cities they are wholly unfamiliar with, all to make blue-city mayors squeal as people in need of shelter and services descend on their already overstretched social safety nets.
And squeal they do. Every time a busload of migrants disembarks at Port Authority, Adams and Hochul whine like stuck pigs. They don’t seem to appreciate that complaining about the Abbott charade all but ensures it will continue. The only currency of value in MAGA-world is “owning the libs,” and every time Democrats react it only strengthens the conservative proposition that liberals are hypocrites whose commitments to human rights don’t extend to their own backyards.
Adams has been trying to figure out a way to make Texas stop. Last week, his administration filed a lawsuit against the bus companies transporting these immigrants in an attempt to recoup some of the money New York City has spent trying to provide for their needs. The lawsuit is enthusiastically supported by Governor Hochul.
From where I sit, this lawsuit is an embarrassment. Politically, it proves Abbott’s point. Socially, it treats sheltering and serving human beings as “damages” that the city should be compensated for. And legally, hoo boy, trying to bank a shot at Texas off of bus companies involves the kind of novel, untested, and probably unconstitutional legal arguments that would make former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani proud.