Officials in a rural New York town say they were given no advance notice by federal officials that a flight carrying 13-18-year-old immigrants would be flown to their area.
Montgomery Village Police Department Chief Paul Arteta and Montgomery Village Mayor Steve Brescia said on “Fox and Friends First” that area residents were “upset” over the flight from Texas that brought the migrants to Orange County Airport. The town is about 75 miles north of New York City.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Brescia said.
He added: “They thought that the village or town knew about it and we knew nothing. And there wasn’t much we could do about it, unfortunately. But just a little forewarning or little information would have helped us considerably.”
Per Arteta, officials said they do not know where the children’s parents are. However, he said the migrant children continued on their journey to other areas of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
According to Arteta, local authorities placed “dozens” of phone calls and were able to find that the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the federal Department of Health and Human Services signed off on the flight.
The increase in migrants in the metropolitan area of New York City has caused New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) to declare a state of emergency as the city works to respond to the increase of Latin migrants, according to The New York Times.
New York City is preparing to spend about $1 billion on its response to the migrants. The city has also called on state and federal officials to help pay for housing and services for the busloads of migrants who have put a strain on the city’s assistance for the homeless, per the Times.
According to Fox News, in just the past few months New York City has seen about 16,000 new asylum seekers.
However, Texas Gov. Greg Abbot’s (R) office said Monday that his state has only sponsored the busing of just under 3,000 migrants to New York City since Aug. 5.
As of today, Texas has bused over 11,900 migrants to sanctuary cities:
— Gov. Greg Abbott (@GovAbbott) October 3, 2022
➡️ Over 8,200 to D.C.
➡️ Over 2,900 to NYC
➡️ Over 870 to Chicago
Texas will continue busing migrants to help our overrun & overwhelmed border communities. #OperationLoneStar
“Texas will continue busing migrants to help our overrun [and] overwhelmed border communities,” he tweeted.
