US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers dropped off hundreds of migrants outside an El Paso bus station on Sunday with no apparent plan to help them find housing.
Among those left stranded were small children and infants.
The drop-off caught Greyhound by surprise.
“All of a sudden a bunch of people show up,” Greyhound spokeswoman Crystal Booker told CNN, according to The Hill. “We weren’t expecting it. We are not given prior notice.”
The over 200 migrants were temporarily housed in buses.
Then, the next day, on Christmas Eve, approximately 60 more were dropped off. More were expected to be dropped off on Christmas and on the 26th.
Beto O’Rourke posted a video on Facebook discussing the influx of migrants.
“(ICE) admitted they had dropped the ball (Sunday) in not notifying the community they were going to release 214 people at the Greyhound station, and then told us we would be expecting 200 people today, which we are seeing, that we’ll expect 200 people (Tuesday), so they are at least giving the community the opportunity to begin getting shelters, hotel rooms, food, medical supplies ready for those who are coming to our community,” O’Rourke said in a video posted on Facebook.
In a statement to CNN, ICE suggested that they were limited in what they could do.
“To mitigate the risk of holding family units past the timeframe allotted to the government, ICE has
The statement continued on: “ICE continues to work with local and state officials and (nongovernmental) partners in the area so they are prepared to provide assistance with transportation or other services.”
The statement did not specifically address why they chose to drop the migrants off at the El Paso bus station over the Christmas holidays without alerting local officials and shelters before the drop-offs began.
Watch more above, via CNN