NYC Cancels Free Bus Rides for Arriving Migrants

Migrants who arrive at the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal are no longer given a free bus ride and are instead told to walk about a mile to an intake center, city officials told Gothamist.

The bus service for migrants had been funded by the state-led MTA, and the cancellation of the service comes as the city continues to try to cope with a migrant crisis that has pushed the city’s shelter population to more than 100,000. Tens of thousands of migrants have arrived in buses at the Port Authority over the last year, many of them from Texas.

Since at least July 4, National Guard members stationed at the Manhattan transit hub have given flyers to migrants with directions to the Roosevelt Hotel, where the city has since May run a temporary shelter and checkpoint for new arrivals who came to New York after illegally crossing the Southern border.

Kate Smart, a spokeswoman for NYC Mayor Eric Adams, said that instead of a free bus taking migrants from the Port Authority to the Roosevelt Hotel, the agency’s buses now take them instead from the hotel to their final shelter placements.

Joshua Goldfein, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society, slammed the change in policy, saying that “these families and individuals, many of them with disabilities and many with very young children, have already experienced trauma at home and on their long journeys here. Forcing them to walk almost a mile to shelter intake facilities in the sweltering heat is shameful and cruel.”

Goldfein added that the buses “are one of the very few contributions the governor has made to support the city in this effort. The state should send more buses.”

Legal Aid also emphasized that Texas government officials have refused to bring the chartered buses directly to the Roosevelt Hotel, which the group said would solve the problem.

After a few days of the cut in bus service and complaints from other nonprofit groups that have been aiding the migrants, MTA spokesman Tim Minton claimed that “buses are provided when requested by the city for emergency situations and when that occurs, discussions follow about sustained feasibility and reimbursement for associated costs.”