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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott flew dozens of migrants to Chicago on Tuesday after the city began cracking down on buses full of immigrants sent from the border state.

Abbott has been busing migrants to sanctuary cities for more than a year, blaming the Biden administration for failing to secure the border and targeting cities that have designated themselves a welcoming to immigrants, including undocumented immigrants.

“Because Mayor Johnson is failing to live up to his city’s ‘Welcoming City’ ordinance by targeting migrant buses from Texas, we are expanding our operation to include flights to Chicago, like the Biden Administration has been doing across the country,” Abbott’s office said in a statement.

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Chicago has recently begun cracking down on buses that arrive in the city outside of official hours or who drop migrants at unauthorized locations. Buses violating the rules can be impounded.

Suburb Rosemont, Illinois, also made efforts to crack down on the practice, promising to ticket bus companies and arrest drivers who bring migrants to the city without permission and proof of lodging.

The city of Chicago said in a statement police at O’Hare Airport were notified a private plane chartered by the Texas Department of Emergency Management had landed, leaving asylum seekers behind.

“Two unidentified individuals who flew with the plane reportedly fled Signature Flight and left the scene in an Uber prior to the arrival of police,” the statement said. “The flight originated from El Paso, Texas. The City is currently working to find space in the shelter system for all asylum seekers currently staying at O’Hare Airport.”

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The Nativity set inside the house in Oak Park was complete with all the typical figurines, except one conspicuously missing piece: The baby Jesus won’t be displayed until Christmas Eve, per a long-standing tradition from Venezuela brought by a group of migrants who found an unexpected home in this western suburb.

They set up the creche a few days before Christmas with their host, 69-year-old Elaine Pierce, a retiree with terminal cancer who recently opened her three-bedroom home to a half-dozen asylum-seekers in need of housing.

Over the summer, Pierce had read in her church bulletin that a local nonprofit was seeking food and blankets for new arrivals, as busloads of asylum-seekers were sent to Chicago from southern states, spurring a local migrant crisis that continues to mount. Pierce had offered to let a few new arrivals live in the extra rooms of her roughly 1,000-square-foot house, where she’d previously been living alone.

“What they really needed was a place to stay,” Pierce said. “I just thought this was the right thing to do. ... I am so grateful for the gifts I’ve been given all my life that I have to give something back."

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The mayor of a Texas border city at the center of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ‘s aggressive measures to curb migrant crossings accused the state Thursday of a new escalation as state troopers closed a large public park along the Rio Grande without asking permission.

The park is a new tension point in Eagle Pass, where large waves of migrant arrivals last month temporarily closed a rail crossing and overwhelmed shelters. U.S. Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas visited Eagle Pass on Monday, days after Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson toured the border city.

Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas questioned why the state closed the 50-acre park now, since daily apprehensions in the region have fallen in recent weeks. Shelby Park touches the river, includes a ramp for boaters and has been used by the state to stage vehicles and equipment for its border mission known as Operation Lone Star.

Salinas said the state gave Eagle Pass officials no warning and offered no timetable on when the park would reopen. He said a DPS official told him the state was taking custody of the park through a disaster declaration, an authority Texas officials have used before on the border.