Today we're talking with Sam González Kelly, who recently set out to follow one of Gov. Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star buses offering asylum seekers rides to liberal northern cities. His story, with photos from San Antonio Express-News' Jerry Lara, explains what the experience is like for the people who have found themselves at the center of a national debate.
How did this story idea come about?
The original idea for the story actually came from my dad a few days after Abbott announced that Chicago would be the third city on his list. I grew up in Chicago and my family still lives there, and my dad suggested I come home for a few days and report on how the city is receiving migrants from Texas. Pretty sure he just wanted me to visit, but it did get me thinking about how little of the reporting on the subject focused on the actual migrants' experiences, rather than the political back-and-forth between Abbott and Democratic leaders. So I mentioned it to my editor, Lily, in passing, and she picked it up and ran with it, and it turned into this.
How hard was it to find a bus you could follow?
This was the hardest part about doing the story because there was no guarantee we were going to find a bus to follow, so we were risking a lot of time and money for something that wasn't certain to pan out. We did ask Abbott's office if we could actually ride the bus and they predictably shot us down, but they also wouldn't even give us the departure schedules. We thought they were just being secretive around the project, but as it turns out they really don't seem to have a set schedule.
We were at the shelter in Eagle Pass for two days and there were rumors that a bus to Chicago might leave the whole time, but it didn't happen until late the second day. Not even the shelter workers knew when exactly it was going to come. So we just had to hang around and hope to get lucky, basically, and we did.
You spoke with many of the asylum seekers on the bus to Chicago. What were their reactions to the bus rides and their experience in the U.S.?
The mood inside the shelter was pretty somber, because they had finally arrived to the U.S., but now they were stuck somewhere they couldn't leave, and they didn't know how long they would be there. As far as the bus ride itself, the man I was communicating with via WhatsApp was starting to get pretty frustrated a few hours into the trip that people weren't being allowed off at the rest stops. When I spoke to him briefly though after getting off the bus in Chicago, he was all smiles. We barely got any time together in Chicago because they were quickly hustled over to the next shelter, and the city was really strict about not letting media inside. But last I heard from him, he had made it to New York City.
You can read the whole story here.
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