A fifth busload of migrants relocated by state officials in Texas arrived in the self-proclaimed sanctuary city of Los Angeles this weekend.
"The city has continued to work with city departments, the county, and a coalition of nonprofit organizations, in addition to our faith partners, to execute a plan set in place earlier this year," the office of Democratic mayor Karen Bass said. "As we have before, when we became aware of the bus yesterday, we activated our plan."
Forty-eight migrants arrived in the city on Saturday, including 18 minors. The migrants were taken to a local school and medically examined.
It's the fifth bus to arrive from the border towns of Texas in the last month. The first bus arrived in the city on June 14.
"Texas just dropped off the 1st bus of migrants in Los Angeles," Texas governor Greg Abbott (R.) tweeted on June 14. "Small Texas border towns remain overrun & overwhelmed because Biden refuses to secure the border."
Abbott pointed to the Democrat-led city's "self-declared sanctuary status" as justification for his state's role in transporting the migrants.
"LA is a city migrants seek to go to," Abbott said in June, "particularly now its leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary status."
California governor Gavin Newsom (D.) has advertised that his state welcomes migrants. "Let me be clear, @realDonaldTrump: California is a sanctuary state," he tweeted in 2018. "We believe in the power of diversity. We have defied and resisted the xenophobic, hateful policies of your administration at every turn. We will do it again."
Texas's move comes as Abbott is set to battle the Biden administration in court over the installation of buoys with underwater netting in parts of the Rio Grande river to deter illegal migrant crossings.
The Department of Justice threatened to sue Texas if it did not remove the barriers, which are anchored to the riverbed. The buoys are set to cover 1,000 feet of the river near Eagle Pass, an area where Border Patrol agents reported the second-highest migrant crossing numbers this year. The first netting devices were set up earlier this month.
"Texas has the sovereign authority to defend our border, under the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution," Abbott tweeted on Friday. "We will see you in court, Mr. President."