It’s the end of the line for Eric Adams’ ‘unconstitutional’ NYC migrant bus suit, judge rules
It’s the end of the line for Mayor Eric Adams’ $700 million lawsuit against bus companies that have hauled more than 33,000 migrants to the Big Apple, according to a Manhattan judge who denied the city’s request for a preliminary injunction and called the case “dubious at best.”
The suit, filed in January against 17 bus companies that ferried folks from Texas to New York City, was deemed “unconstitutional” by Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Mary Rosado.
“This is a plain attempt to regulate the transportation of indigent persons from State to State in violation of the Interstate Commerce Clause,” the Monday decision reads.
At the suit’s core was a 19th-century “pauper’s statute,” which the nation’s top court already declared unconstitutional over 80 years ago.
“The Court finds that it cannot grant the Commissioner’s request for injunctive relief as the merits of her claim are dubious at best given myriad constitutional concerns,” Rosado wrote.
Chief legal counsel to the mayor and City Hall Lisa Zornberg said in a Tuesday press conference that they respect the court’s ruling.
But Zornberg also claimed in that same presser that the 1817 statute the suit was based on — aimed at preventing people from bringing a person to New York “for the purpose of making him a public charge” — “hadn’t been ruled on, whether that law was constitutional or not.”
Rosado’s decision makes clear that the law was already deemed unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in a 1941 ruling against an “essentially identical” California law.
“That lawsuit that we brought, which I’m very proud of, was really about using every tool in New York City’s toolbox to protect New York City’s social service system and New Yorkers,” Zornberg said. “That’s what that lawsuit was.”
Robert Hantman, an attorney for the bus companies being sued, told The Post Wednesday that “the Judge is to be applauded for her objectivity and integrity in following the law and ignoring political considerations.”
Several bus companies had already agreed to cease busing migrants to the city after the case was filed.
“These companies have violated state law by not paying the cost of caring for these migrants, and that’s why we are suing to recoup approximately $700 million already spent to care for migrants sent here in the last two years by Texas,” Adams said in a statement after the suit was filed.
In fact, the judge wrote that what the Adams administration was seeking would bring about an unconstitutional “chilling” effect on interstate travel, making movement “dependent on economic status,” which could result in “a regime of balkanization with each state setting forth a patchwork of inconsistent criteria for crossing state lines.”
“The Commissioner ignores the United States Supreme Court’s holding that there exist strict constitutional limitations upon state power to interfere with the interstate transportation of persons, and this limitation is not subject to an exception simply because those persons being transported are considered ‘paupers’ or ‘indigent,’” Rosado wrote.
Zornberg said Tuesday, and in prior court filings, that the suit did not impose an unconstitutional restriction on interstate commerce.
Roughly 33,600 migrants have been bused using these companies since the start of New York City’s migrant crisis in April 2022, according to the city’s suit.
In July, the city said more than 200,000 migrants have come to the Big Apple in total, and that 64,000 were still residing in city shelters.
