Bus company sued by NYC agrees not to bring migrants to region anymore
NEW YORK — One of the 17 charter bus companies sued by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration over transfers of asylum seekers to the New York area has agreed to stop bringing travelers known to be migrants to the region, according to court papers filed Wednesday.
The agreement comes more than two months after New York City filed a lawsuit against the company, Roadrunner Charters, in response to a surge in migrant arrivals around New Year’s Day. The Republican-led state of Texas took credit for the operation.
“Defendant Roadrunner Charters Inc. will refrain forthwith from transporting individuals known as migrants from Texas to New York City, and/or from Texas to the vicinity of New York City, including but not limited to New Jersey,” said the two-page stipulation.
The agreement, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, did not cover the other 16 bus companies sued by the city.
A lawyer for Roadrunner, Robert Hantman, said that the company is not currently bringing migrants to the city. But he added his client expects “to be successful in the major issue: which is that bus companies have nothing to do” with planning migrant transports to New York.
“Roadrunner is simply a charter bus company,” Hantman said by phone, portraying his client as caught in a fight between larger forces.
He said New York City “should be suing Gov. Abbott or the state of Texas, not a bus company.”
The office of Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas’ Republican leader, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Texas, strained by a surge in migrant border crossings in recent years, claims to have sent more than 33,000 migrants to New York City since August 2022. The effort has made Texas one of the drivers of the city’s migrant crisis.
More than 184,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since spring 2022, and the city continues to shelter about 65,000, according to the mayor’s office. The city has opened more than 200 shelter sites, and projects migrant-related municipal costs to reach $10 billion by 2025.
At the start of this year, hundreds of migrants were dropped off at New Jersey Transit stations and then rode the rails into the city after Adams barred migrant buses from the city except during 3.5 hour windows on weekday mornings.
The city’s lawsuit against the bus companies — which sought more than $700 million in damages — was seen in some quarters as a publicity stunt. But the waves of migrant buses have subsided since the complaint, according to City Hall.
On Wednesday, Adams said he was pleased that Roadrunner had promised to stop sending migrant-filled buses from Texas. And he continued to chastise Abbott, with whom he has had a long-running war of words.
“New York City continues to do our part as we lead the nation in managing this national humanitarian crisis, but reckless political games from the state of Texas will not be tolerated,” Adams said in a statement.
He cast Roadrunner as a participant in Abbott’s “scheme to transport tens of thousands of migrants to our city in an attempt to overwhelm our shelter system and shift costs to New York City.”
But he underlined that he was glad the company had pledged not to bring more migrants.
“We call on all other bus companies involved in this suit to do the same,” the mayor said in the statement.
