So much for New York being a "sanctuary," eh?
Migrants abandon NYC for Canada with taxpayer-funded bus tickets
http://nypost.com/2023/02/05/migrants-abandon-nyc-for-canada-with-taxpayer-funded-bus-tickets/
By Jack Morphet, Craig McCarthy, Bernadette Hogan and Bruce Golding
The New York Post
February 5, 2023
Disgruntled migrants fed up with the Big Apple’s crime and grime are taking off to the Great White North — on bus rides paid for by New York taxpayers, The Post has learned.
National Guard soldiers have been helping distribute tickets at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan to migrants who want to head upstate before crossing into Canada, several migrants said.
Venezuelan native Raymond Peña and his family arrived at a gas station bus stop in Plattsburgh, NY — about 20 miles south of the Canadian border — at 4 a.m. Sunday.
“The military gave me and my family free bus tickets,” Peña said. “I am going to Canada for a better quality of life for my family.”
A National Guard source confirmed that soldiers at the bus terminal were directing migrants to workers who hand out the free tickets.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration pays various companies that run programs for migrants that include “re-ticketing” so they can travel to other cities, a City Hall source said.
Various nonprofits, including Catholic Charities, also help migrants who want to flee Gotham, the source said.
A spokesperson for Catholic Charities Community Services said it’s helped “thousands of new migrants,” including some who “reported their desire to relocate to other cities, and Catholic Charities provided some assistance for their travel expenses.”
Destinations are limited to within the US due to restrictions that prohibit the migrants from leaving the country while on immigration “parole” pending the outcome of asylum proceedings, a source said.
But word has spread among the migrant community that Canada — where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has touted the country’s “proud and longstanding tradition of welcoming people seeking safety” — is the place to go.
Migrants routinely tear up their American immigration documents while traveling from Plattsburgh to the Canadian border, with The Post seeing scraps of paper with references to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the floor of a shuttle van.
The van — which has the word “Frontera,” Spanish for “border,” painted on its sides — is one of three operated by “Chad’s Shuttle Services.”
Driver Tyler Tambini, whose girlfriend’s brother owns the company, said passengers arrive like clockwork on the five buses from New York City that stop in Plattsburgh each day.
“There’s gotta be 100 people a day,” said Tambini, 23. “I do this all day. They get dropped off and I take them the rest of the way.”
Tambini said his employer charged single migrants $40 to $50 each and families $90. Taxi drivers, who charge single migrants $70 each, compete for business by rushing to the buses to solicit passengers and help them with their luggage.
The Post accompanied several groups of migrants who rode Tambini’s van from the Mountain Mart gas station to a cul-de-sac at the end of rural Roxham Road, just steps from the Canadian border.
After trudging north along a snow-covered path and through a break in a concrete barrier, the migrants were stopped by Mounties stationed in an elaborate complex of metal sheds.
“You have entered into Canada. You are under arrest,” a Mountie said. “Take everything from your pockets and put it in your bags — only ‘dinero’ [Spanish for ‘money’] in your pockets.”
Mounties then escorted the migrants up an enclosed ramp and into a shed for processing.
Peruvian native Susy Sanchez Solzarno, 33, crossed from Roxham Road into Canada with her husband and two daughters early Friday after one of the girls, 15, saw a video of other migrants doing it on TikTok.
Solzarno said the family entered the US from Mexico in December and later spent about a month in a Marriott hotel in Queens that’s being used as an emergency shelter.
“I wanted to live in New York because I thought it would be a better future for my daughters,” she said. “But as the days went by, I saw insecurity, many homeless people, many people who shout and are disrespectful, and many people on drugs.”
Solzarno said she sold candy in the subway system for almost two weeks to pay for their trip.
“I am going to Canada for the safety and future of my girls,” she said. “I only ask God that everything goes well and that Canada is not like the United States.”
Venezuelan native Manuel Rodon, 26, who arrived in Plattsburgh around 4 a.m. Saturday, said he decided to leave the city after getting “kicked out” of the Row NYC hotel near Times Square and relocated to a homeless shelter in Brooklyn.
Rodon described the shelter as “OK” except for the American residents.
“A lot of the Americans used drugs there,” he said. “I feel like Canada will be safer. It is a much quieter country than America.”
Rodon, who crossed the border about an hour after getting to Plattsburgh, said he knew eight other Venezuelans who’d made the same trip.
“They all got free tickets, too. It was the same process,” he said. “It took them three days through customs. They are all safe. They live in Montreal.”
Rodon, a painter and construction worker, said that “all the information is on social media” and that he hoped to quickly get a work permit in Canada.
“It is very difficult to get papers in America,” he said. “I need to work, so I am going to Canada.”
Under US rules, migrants can’t apply for work permits until 30 days after formally seeking asylum and aren’t eligible for permits for another 150 days after that.
Adams has called for the White House to speed up that process and to grant the city $1 billion in emergency aid to help provide migrants with housing and other services, which the mayor has said could cost double that amount.
Last month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to commit to fully granting Adams’ request, saying only that unspecified new funding would be “available to border cities and those cities receiving an influx of migrants.”
But Hizzoner pressed President Biden for a meeting on the subject after the president held a news conference in Manhattan last week, a source said at the time.
As of Wednesday, an estimated 43,900-plus migrants had flooded into the city since the spring, with more than 28,400 living in 83 hotels and five “Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers” established in larger hotels and the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
Asked for comment on the bus tickets, Adams’ press secretary, Fabien Levy, said: “As we have said since the beginning of this crisis, our goal is help connect asylum seekers who want to move to a different location with friends, family, and/or community and, if needed, re-ticket to help get people to their final destination, if not New York City.”
City Hall did not respond to questions about the cost of the “re-ticketing.”
A spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul said neither the state nor the National Guard was paying for bus tickets, and referred The Post to the city for additional information.
“At the request of the city, National Guard members have been deployed to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where they greet people upon arrival, answer questions and direct them to services, including transportation options that they seek,” said spokesperson Hazel Crampton-Hays.
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