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NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 13: The tents on the Randall's Island are expected to provide temporary shelter for 500 adults as the city’s homeless population has ballooned with the arrival of migrants sent to the city on buses, mostly from Texas. Texas Governor Greg Abbott continues to bus thousands of migrants crossing the Texas-Mexico border to other parts of the country and has become a lightning rod when it comes to the immigration issue in the US. Over the past six months, Abbott, a Republican, has expanded his busing strategy by sending migrants not only to Washington, D.C., but also to New York and Chicago, all large cities run by Democratic mayors. "Governor Abbott is drawing attention to a national issue and not allowing the Biden administration to sweep the immigration problem under the rug," said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. Jones told Anadolu Agency that Abbott is putting pressure on Democrats to reevaluate the problems of US immigration policies while stoking a hot button issue that appeals to his voter base, as the Texas governor himself is up for reelection during the upcoming midterms, where he faces a formidable Democratic opponent in Beto O'Rourke. As of early September, Abbott had sent almost 250 busloads totaling nearly 11,000 migrants from Texas to New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. to the dismay of those cities' respective mayors. In September, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public health emergency, announcing the city would spend $10 million to create an office to help coordinate the arrival of migrants. In addition, because of Abbott's busing plan, House Democrats last Friday called on Congress to provide $50 million in federal funding to house and feed migrants being bused from Texas and Arizona. Arizona, which is only sending buses to Washington, D.C., has so far sent at least 46 buses carrying 1,677 migrants.(Footage by Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)