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The first group of migrants arrives in a white bus as the rain calms. On a soggy August morning in Del Rio, Texas, about 50 men, women, and children have just been released from U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody. Despite deboarding into a rare desert downpour, most of them are smiling.
After weeks of traveling from their home countries of Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, and Honduras, these migrants are now permitted to be on U.S. soil free from government detention. The next leg of their journey awaits. For many, it will mean stepping onto yet another bus—and into a national political debate over which American communities host them.
Since April, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, has been chartering buses to send migrants crossing the border to cities like Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago. It’s a political salvo to Democratic leaders: liberal “open border” policies, Abbott says, are overwhelming Texas, and he wants to give them a taste of what Texas communities are going through by shuttling migrants to their cities instead.
The busing—part of Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, a controversial initiative to secure the Texas-Mexico border that launched in March 2021—has cost Texas taxpayers more than $12 million as of mid-August.
But for the migrants who choose to board them, the buses are free. And for many of the travelers, the transportation has been a welcome gift beneath the political gamesmanship.
Read more at the link in bio. Photographs by Kaylee Greenlee Beal (@kgreenleephoto) for TIME (1, 2); @shuranhuang for TIME (3, 4)
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