"We followed one of Abbott's migrant buses from Texas to Chicago. Here's what we learned."

[Nevilledog]

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/immigration/article/migrant-buses-abbott-chicago-17471348.php

No paywall
https://archive.ph/OiCKN


Rumors had been floating around the Eagle Pass migrant shelter for days that a free bus would take people to Chicago, but so far, none of the hundreds of visitors at Mission: Border Hope had any idea of when. Many had stayed in the windowless warehouse overnight, eating ham-and-cheese sandwiches, calling their families and sleeping on mats on the floor.
At least a dozen people approached us for answers.

“Perdóname, pero no sabemos,” we told them. “Queremos saber lo mismo que ustedes.” (Sorry, but we don’t know. We’re trying to figure out the same thing.)

As journalists for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News, we’d set out to follow one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star buses offering asylum seekers rides to liberal northern cities. The aim was to get a sense of what the experience is like for the thousands of people who have found themselves at the center of a national debate.

Abbott’s busing program has been the subject of intense political disputes and accusations of callous inhumanity. Though immigration experts say the trips are “stunts,” they also say they are likely beneficial to most who participate.

For the people directly affected, those arguments take a back seat to much more pressing questions: Will I even be able to get on a bus, and will there be work wherever it takes me?

*snip*

[Nictuku]

1. What a horrorshow: People wanting to actually do work

With a country having a shortage of people willing to work for low pay service jobs... the answer seems obvious.

The alternative? Americans who have determined they can't make it on low paying jobs being forced to take low paying jobs and forever be on the edge of survival? Is that what the Republicans want? For people to be in such abject poverty that they have to take multiple jobs?

What I want? Jobs that pay a living wage (regardless of who is doing it) Should I hold my breath?

Having said that, I don't think immigrants deserve that kind of life either. Everyone who is willing to work should be paid a living wage.

I'm so sick and tired of Greed.

[KentuckyWoman]

6. This.

Well put and thank you.

[Meadowoak]

2. Low wages are the closest thing the GOP can get to slavery, for now.

[2naSalit]

3. +1

[area51]

7. +1 n/t

[Initech]

4. OMG Abbott is a fucking ghoul. Texas deserves better than this POS.

[calimary]

5. And so are the people who vote for him. They must like that cruelty stuff.

Fucking sadists.

[uponit7771]

10. +1,

[Cozmo]

8. Immigration advocates on the other side of the border need to provide an network of info

forewarning potential immigrants of the heinous deeds of Abbott and DeSatan

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. 12 hours on the bus before letting them take a rest stop