A bus carrying 41 migrants from Brownsville, Texas, arrived in Southern California on Saturday – the second such shipment from the region in two weeks.
The Texas-funded bus arrived at Union Station at 12:40 p.m. Intake of the migrants began shortly after they arrived with a legal orientation, according to Angelica Salas, executive director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
Members of the group, which included 11 children, came from Belize, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela, Salas said at a news conference.
City officials became aware of the upcoming arrival on Friday and mobilized by working with a coalition of nonprofit groups and faith-based organizations to accommodate the group, Mayor Karen Bass’s spokesperson Zach Seidl said in a statement.
The mayor’s office said it was “not formally notified” before learning that migrants were heading to the city, according to the statement.
“The City of Los Angeles believes in treating everyone with respect and dignity and will do so,” Seidl said.
Republican governors have been transporting migrants to several Democratic-led states and cities in protest of southern border security efforts by the federal government which they’ve said are inadequate.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott first sent migrants from Texas to Los Angeles on June 14 as the state continued its pushback against policies.
Bass called the move “a political stunt” in an interview last month with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“I think it’s despicable to use individuals like this,” Bass said. “I think that doing this, if he was sincere, he would have contacted Los Angeles, he would have told us people were coming, he would have told us who the individuals were, but they didn’t do that.”
A collective of several organizations including “immigration legal services providers and faith organizations focused on migrant arrival rapid response,” welcomed the migrants to the Golden State, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights said in a statement.
“Independent of origin, mode of transportation or motive, Los Angeles is organized and ready to receive these asylum seekers when they get here. If Los Angeles is their last destination, we will ensure this is the place where they get a genuine and humane reception,” Salas said.
The migrants will receive legal help from the Immigrant Defenders Law Center if needed to help navigate immigration court, executive director Lindsay Toczylowski told CNN’s Camila Bernal in an interview.
“We look at the documents that they came with so that we can help advise them on what the next steps are in their case,” Toczylowski said.
Abbott has bussed more than 23,000 migrants to cities across the country, including Washington, DC, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles, according to a post on Abbott’s official Twitter account dated June 27.
That post said over 40 migrants had been transported to Los Angeles, CNN previously reported.
CNN has reached out to Abbott’s office for comment.
In June, California officials launched an investigation after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis allegedly arranged for migrants to be taken from Texas to New Mexico and then flown by private jet to California.
Officials are investigating whether those migrants were misled with false promises.
CNN’s Taylor Romine, Elizabeth Joseph, Kate Sullivan, Sam Fossum and Aya Elamroussi contributed to this report.
