Texas begins flying “migrants” to sanctuary cities with first flight to Chicago

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The state of Texas has started flying migrants to sanctuary cities, with the first flight arriving in Chicago on Tuesday evening, Fox News has learned – marking an escalation of Gov. Greg Abbott’s previous strategy of bussing migrants to ease the pressure on the border state.

Fox is told that the first flight left El Paso Tuesday afternoon with 120 migrants on board and arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare airport later in the day. Sources in Abbott’s office told Fox that all migrants signed voluntary waivers, as they do with the buses.

The decision was partially in response to Chicago’s interference of the buses traveling to the sanctuary city. The city has launched lawsuits against companies transporting the migrants.

The move from Abbott is an escalation from the strategy in place since April 2022 when he began bussing migrants first to Washington, D.C., and later expanded it to include other cities with "sanctuary" policies that forbid or limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Abbott’s office said this week that the state has bused over 82,900 migrants to cities, including D.C., New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles. Abbott has said the operation provides "vital relief" to border towns and has promised to keep doing it "until [President] Biden secures the border."

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Meanwhile, the chaos at the border itself continues with enormous numbers of migrant encounters. The daily record for encounters was broken this week when more than 12,600 migrants were encountered in a single day.

Customs and Border Protection sources told Fox News on Wednesday that December total migrant encounters have exceeded 190,000 and are on track to break another record for the highest monthly total – which was 269,000 in September.

Sources told Fox that agents are averaging around 10,000 encounters a day, and Mexican sources say more are on the way.

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