Texas has since made L.A., the nation’s second largest city, a regular destination, sending a total of 14 buses carrying 562 people over the past three months. During the same period, thousands of other recent immigrants have traveled to Southern California on their own.
But unlike in other major metro areas — particularly New York, where Mayor Eric Adams recently warned that the migrant crisis “will destroy” his city — leaders in Los Angeles are not sounding alarms.
Instead, the city has quietly avoided the kind of emergency that has strained shelters and left officials pleading for federal help in New York, Chicago and Massachusetts. Los Angeles officials are relieved to have avoided major problems so far, especially considering that their city has faced so many other challenges lately, from a homelessness emergency to a prolonged Hollywood labor strike.
“As a city that is not very far away from the border, we’re used to people coming here seeking refuge and shelter,” said Hugo Soto-Martinez, a City Council member whose parents immigrated to Los Angeles from Mexico decades ago and worked as street vendors. “Luckily, we have the infrastructure.”
Officials at homeless shelters in Los Angeles report that they have not seen a significant increase in recent migrants seeking temporary housing. Immigrant aid groups say they have been able to develop an efficient process to help the migrants who do arrive on the buses sent by Texas, usually a few dozen at a time.
“As a city that is not very far away from the border, L.A. used to people coming here seeking refuge and shelter,” said Hugo Soto-Martinez
A major reason California has avoided a crisis is that the state no longer attracts as many migrants as it did decades ago when it was a top destination for people moving to the United States. Starting in the 1990s, the state’s high cost of living, coupled with a plethora of job opportunities in the Sun Belt and elsewhere in the country, led border crossers to seek other destinations.
Although Los Angeles is home to the largest undocumented population in the United States, most have been living in the city for at least a decade.
The migrants arriving by bus from Texas are just a small fraction of the more than 1,000 recent immigrants each week who head to the Los Angeles area to start new lives in California — a number that has remained steady for years.
Most of them initially stay with relatives, who help them find work, housing and schools for their children. As a result, they are unlikely to seek emergency shelter or other city resources, immigration experts said.
Those arriving in Los Angeles tend to be Central Americans and Mexicans, who have been migrating to California for decades and have built up strong communities in the region, providing a ready support network for new arrivals.
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