Texas flew more than 120 illegal migrants up to Chicago this week, the first time Texas has sent a plane full of migrants to the city.
The flight left from the border city of El Paso and arrived at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Tuesday.
The plane was chartered by the Texas Department of Emergency Management, a Chicago city spokesperson said Wednesday.
After the flight landed, airport police got a call about the migrants shortly after 7 p.m., the city spokesperson said. Two people on the flight took an Uber away from the area before police could get there.
Chicago has been scrambling to respond to a migrant crisis for months now.
More than 26,000 migrants have arrived in the country’s third-largest city since last year. Nearly 1,200 migrants are still camping out at O’Hare Airport and various police stations.
Chicago has also reached deep into its pockets to build huge winterized tents to shelter thousands of migrants through the city’s freezing winter months. The contract for the project is $29.3 million.
The move by Texas comes after Chicago cracked down on buses arriving with migrants from Texas. Bus drivers started dropping migrants off in nearby cities to avoid penalties like fines and towing for unloading migrants at the wrong places or without the right paperwork.
“Sanctuary city Chicago started obstructing and targeting our busing mission. Texas will now expand our operation to include flights to Chicago. Until Biden steps up to secure the border, we will continue to provide overwhelmed Texas border towns with much-needed relief,” Abbott said.
Mayor Brandon Johnson accused the Texas governor of “lawlessness.”
“Clearly the governor is trying to circumvent law. And this is lawlessness that he is engaged in right now,” Johnson said Wednesday.
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Chicago City Council member Byron Sigcho-Lopez called the move by Texas a “political stunt that goes, not only short in addressing the issue, but further creates more tensions, more danger and more issues in the city.”
Since last year, Texas’ Republican Governor Greg Abbott has bused more than 80,000 migrants to cities run by Democrats, including Chicago, in an effort to relieve El Paso and other overwhelmed areas on the border.
Meanwhile, record numbers of migrants are illegally crossing the border.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is currently dealing with more than 10,000 migrant encounters each day.
In October, border authorities encountered a total of 240,988 migrants at the border, according to CBP, making it the highest October on record.