Fifth bus of migrants sent from Texas arrives in Los Angeles

A bus carrying 44 migrants from Texas arrived at Union Station on Saturday morning, the fifth such busload sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in just over a month, according to Los Angeles officials.

The migrants arrived in downtown Los Angeles from Brownsville, Texas, around 11: 30 a.m. and were met by members of the L.A. Welcome Collective, which includes the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the Central American Resource Center-Los Angeles, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and others.

The move by the Texas governor comes just four days after another bus he sent — carrying 44 migrants from Venezuela, China, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Chile and Brazil — arrived at Union Station from Brownsville.

“The City has continued to work with City Departments, the County, and a coalition of nonprofit organizations, in addition to our faith partners, to execute a plan set in place earlier this year,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement. “As we have before, when we became aware of the bus yesterday, we activated our plan.”

The three other buses arrived on June 12, July 1 and July 13 carrying, respectively, 42, 41 and 30 migrants.

Texas has funded the transport of more than 22,000 migrants to Democratic-run cities across the U.S., including New York, Washington, Chicago, Denver and Philadelphia, as part of Abbott’s protest against federal immigration policies. So far, he’s raised $415,397 in donations to help pay for the transfer of migrants, according to the governor’s website.