CHICAGO (NEWSnet/AP) — A Texas transportation company has taken the city of Chicago to federal court, stepping up a legal battle in the U.S. over border crossings and migrant status.

The lawsuit by the Texas-based Wynne Transportation against Chicago was filed Jan. 5, but received little attention until local media reported on it this week.

One of the steps Texas has taken in response to a surge of people crossing the border from Mexico has been sending more than 100,000 migrants since 2022 to Democrat-led “sanctuary cities.” The state has contracts with multiple bus companies to send asylum seekers north and recently began chartering planes.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he launched the busing effort to ease the burden on border cities, adding that the federal government needs to take action on immigration reform.

He argues that migrants choose their destinations, get free tickets and the cities should live up to their promise of welcoming all.

But the influx has overwhelmed major U.S. cities, namely Chicago, New York and Denver, with mayors making their own pleas for federal help. They call Abbott’s approach inhumane with buses arriving at all hours and with no passenger lists or coordination. During the colder months in the north, many of the migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have been arriving without winter coats.

“The lack of care that has been on display for the last year and a half has created an incredible amount of chaos,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said at a news conference with other mayors last month.

New York Mayor Eric Adams traveled to Latin America to dissuade people from making the trip, while Johnson sent a delegation to border cities in hopes of improving communication.

For Chicago and other cities, that has meant repeated stopgap efforts to shelter migrants, including parked city buses, police station lobbies, libraries and airports. Johnson, Adams and other city leaders have pleaded with their states and the Biden administration for more money.

Late last year, Chicago cracked down on what it called “rogue buses,” and passed rules requiring them to drop off during particular hours in a specific area of downtown.

To skirt those rules, the buses began dropping off migrants in suburbs miles away from the city, also at all hours and with no warning. That prompted city-suburban squabbles and a summit in the coming days between the mayors of Chicago and several area suburbs.

Abbott also began chartering private planes to Chicago and New York.

The complaint filed in federal court in Chicago argues that the city overstepped by regulating immigration, regulating interstate commerce and violated the equal rights and due process of the company and the migrants on buses.

Asylum seekers, meanwhile, face a wait of as much as two years for court dates in the country's overloaded immigration court system.

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