Varied responses from NJ mayors as migrants bypass NYC rule

Democratic mayors in New Jersey have responded very differently to the growing number of migrants sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in an apparent attempt to circumvent Mayor Eric Adams’ recent executive order changing how buses carrying asylum-seekers could arrive in New York City.

Buses showed up unannounced on Saturday to train stations in Edison, Jersey City, Trenton, Fanwood and Secaucus, where migrants were then loaded onto commuter trains into New York. Adams imposed the order last month, limiting the times buses can arrive and also requiring the city be notified before such arrivals.

"Our position in Edison Township is that they’re not welcome here,” Edison Mayor Sam Joshi told News12. “They’re illegal and they belong on the other side of the border...We don’t want them in Edison, period.”

The statement prompted a response from Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who grew up in Edison, and is the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

“Edison is an immigrant community and I know it's an easy political soundbite to say, ‘Send those people home or they should follow the process,’” said Fulop, a friend of Joshi’s. “They come here and they seek asylum and then there is a process to vet whether that is true or not true. And so just to say, ‘Put them on a bus and send them home where they should be on the other side of the border,’ I think we're better than that, whether it's Edison, Jersey City or New Jersey, or really this country.”

Fulop said Jersey City had already been putting migrants in motels without incident for several months.

The mayor of Trenton said he sympathized with the migrants, but his city doesn’t have the resources to provide housing or other services.

“As of right now, we're monitoring the situation and we do have concerns that there could be an influx of migrants,” Mayor Reed Gusciora said. “The Republicans in the [U.S. House of Representatives], at least, need to really get back to work and not engage in the nonsense that they've been doing for the last year.”

On Tuesday, Adams urged surrounding municipalities, including in New Jersey, to try to restrict the flow of migrant buses through executive orders similar to one he issued last week.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, has yet to weigh in on how the state will respond to the growing number of buses arriving in his state since the Adams executive order.

“Our Administration has tracked the recent arrival of a handful of buses of migrant families at various NJ Transit train stations,” Murphy spokeswoman Tyler Jones said in a written statement. “We are closely coordinating with our federal and local partners on this matter, including our colleagues across the Hudson.”

A state official said the buses had chaperones who helped the migrants get onto trains to New York.

Although migrants have been arriving in New Jersey throughout last year, the numbers do not come anywhere near the more than 95,000 that came to New York in 2023. Immigrant rights organization Make the Road NJ created a welcome center in Elizabeth, N.J. and said it has been helping about 200 to 400 refugees each month.

If there’s a bigger influx of migrants, the reaction in New Jersey would likely be very different than in New York, according to Matt Hale, a political scientist at Seton Hall University.

“I've always thought that New Jersey is probably more conservative than New York City as a whole. I think that New Jersey Democrats tend to be much more centrist,” Hale said. That could mean New Jersey members of Congress could start to hear from their constituents, and that could encourage them to try for a deal on immigration reform.”

He added, “And when residents push, politicians answer.”