The Southern California city so far has avoided the desperate situation that other metro areas are facing, in part because it no longer attracts as many immigrants as it once did.
By the time the first bus of migrants from Texas arrived in Los Angeles in June, Democratic leaders who run the city were surprised it had taken so long for Republican governors to send people their way.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida had already chartered flights of asylum seekers to Sacramento and to liberal areas like Martha’s Vineyard. Over the course of a year, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas had already sent thousands of migrants to New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., by chartered bus.
Texas has since made Los Angeles, the nation’s second largest city, a regular destination, sending a total of 14 buses carrying 562 people over the past three months. During the same period, thousands of other recent immigrants have traveled to Southern California on their own.
But unlike in other major metro areas — particularly New York, where Mayor Eric Adams recently warned that the migrant crisis “will destroy” his city — leaders in Los Angeles are not sounding alarms.
Instead, the city has quietly avoided the kind of emergency that has strained shelters and left officials pleading for federal help in New York, Chicago and Massachusetts. Los Angeles officials are relieved to have avoided major problems so far, especially considering that their city has faced so many other challenges lately, from a homelessness emergency to a prolonged Hollywood labor strike.
Recent Comments