Mayor denies report New York City is buying bus tickets to Canada for migrants

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) on Thursday denied a New York Times report that said the city was purchasing bus tickets to Canada for migrants.

The New York Times on Wednesday reported that city officials are buying tickets for migrants who want to head to Canada and seek asylum there. Adams denied the report on Thursday, telling CNN’s Don Lemon that the city does not send migrants to Canada.

“We are not encouraging anyone to go to another country,” he said.

The report comes after months of Republican state leaders sending migrants to Democrat-led cities, including New York City and Washington, D.C. Thousands of people from Texas and Arizona have been bused to northern cities, which has pushed leaders of those cities to ask for additional federal assistance.

Adams has frequently called for federal support to aid the city in addressing the migrant situation in his city but has said he has been “extremely disappointed” with the federal government’s response. He said, unlike Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), that New York City is asking migrants what their desires are instead of compelling them to go somewhere else.

“Last year when we spoke with migrants, we learned that they were compelled to come to New York City. We’re sitting down, giving them health care, education, food, shelter, but we’re also asking them, what are your desires?” he said.

“That is not what Abbott did in Texas,” he continued. “And what he did was inhumane, which showed a level of humane interaction with our migrants.”