California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Thursday that his office is investigating what 42 migrants were told before boarding a bus from Texas to Los Angeles.

What You Need To Know

  • California Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office is investigating the legality of Texas busing 42 migrants to LA

  • He said the Department of Justice is looking into what they were told before boarding the bus

  • The DOJ is looking for evidence of deception or fraud that could be the basis of civil or criminal charges

  • The migrants are asylum seekers from Honduras, Venezuela and Haiti

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott took credit for the migrants’ journey from the Rio Grande Valley to downtown LA, issuing a statement when they arrived Wednesday that confirmed their dropoff.

“As they arrived into the bus depot, the governor of Texas tweeted about it, seemingly knowing exactly when the bus was going to arrive,” Bonta said during an unrelated press event in Riverside, Calif.

"Let’s call it what it was: a political stunt that used human beings cruelly as pawns," he added.

Bonta said the California Department of Justice is investigating whether there was any deception or fraud that could be the basis for civil or criminal illegal activity.

“The legality question is an open one,” he said. “We will go wherever the facts and the law take us.”

The 42 migrants bused from Texas traveled more than 1,500 miles and 23 hours without food or water, according to immigrants rights advocates. Traveling from Honduras, Venezuela and Haiti, the migrants are asylum seekers fleeing conditions where they were unsafe or persecuted, Bonta said.

“There’s a legal process for seeking asylum here in the United States,” he added. “These are recent arrivals. They included children, and they were part of a political stunt by the governor of Texas and perhaps others.”