New York City Mayor Eric Adams sent a delegation of officials on a fact-finding mission to the southern border on Tuesday. The mayor did not make the trip. There was no press coverage of the delegation’s visit other than by Fox News. The delegation refused to speak to the Fox reporter on the scene.

Why the secrecy, Mayor Adams? Adams has been in front of television cameras for days having a hissy fit that Texas Governor Abbott is sending buses of illegal migrants to NYC. Abbott extended an invitation to Adams to come and tour the border for a first hand look at the chaos the Biden border crisis has caused border states. Adams refused the invitation.

The delegation met with Border Patrol officials in Eagle Pass, Texas. Hundreds of migrants cross the Rio Grande River there every day. Adams accused Abbott of being “unresponsive” and turning the Biden border crisis “into a political sideshow.” In the mayor’s statement there is the implication that the migrants are being bused to NYC against their wishes.

“We’ve sent members of the team down on a fact-finding mission to hear directly from folks on the ground along the southern border and get the real answers we’re not getting from Texas, including whether they are sending asylum seekers to New York City even if they prefer to go elsewhere,” Press Secretary Fabian Levy said in a statement.

“Here in New York, we will continue to welcome asylum seekers with open arms, as we learn more about the process, meet with real partners, and see, firsthand, the reportedly inhumane conditions in which asylum seekers are being subjected to by the state of Texas,” he said.

The delegation toured Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) new temporary processing center in Eagle Pass. It is filled to capacity. The center can house up to 1,000 people. Migrants stay at this facility for less than 72 hours as they are processed and then released or deported.

Governor Abbott’s office said it has transported about 1,900 migrants to NYC since the beginning off August. He is only sending buses to cities that are have labeled themselves sanctuary cities. Adams is proud to boast that NYC is a sanctuary city and welcomes everyone, so why is he panicking over 1,900 migrants in a city as large as his? It’s probably because it’s all fun and games until illegal migrants actually show up and need housing and food and schools for their children, all on the city’s dime. Suddenly the mayor’s virtue-signaling isn’t so smug. He quickly developed a not-in-my-backyard attitude.

Abbott’s office said that his invitation to Mayor Adams remains open. Come see it for yourself, mayor. Don’t just hand off the responsibility to your staff.

“Governor Abbott’s invitation is still open for Mayor Adams to come visit our southern border and see firsthand the devastating impacts of the Biden-made crisis on border towns smaller than a NYC borough – instead of sending his staffers on a secret trip to Texas,” Press Secretary Renae Eze said in a statement.

Adams calls Abbott lots of names, including un-American and unpatriotic, and accuses Abbott of using illegal migrants as political pawns. Governor Abbott admits the buses arriving in sanctuary cities is to highlight the problem of overcrowding at the border because of Biden’s border crisis. Many of the communities along the border are smaller than NYC boroughs. They are overwhelmed with thousands of illegal migrants every week. It is not fair to border states to have to cope with the flood of migrants on their own. Taxpayers are picking up the tab while the federal government refuses to do its job. Immigration is the responsibility of the federal government, not individual states.

Abbott wrote an op-ed for the New York Post in August and explained that Adams is lying about inhumane treatment of illegal migrants in Texas. Adams claims that the migrants are bused to New York against their will is absurd. Abbott also reminded Adams that DHS has been busing and flying the migrants all across the country, including New York, for many months. Where is Adams’ outrage about that?

Adams’ fabricated claims about Texas’ treatment of migrants have no basis in reality. To be clear, any migrant who boards a bus from Texas to New York has signed an agreement to be transported to the city. All are provided food and ­water throughout the ­journey.

Adams talked the talk about being a sanctuary city — welcoming illegal immigrants into the Big Apple with warm hospitality. Talk is cheap. When pressed into fulfilling such ill-considered policies, he wants to condemn anyone who is pressing him to walk the walk.

Adams claims that sending migrants on a roughly 30-hour bus trip to New York is inhumane. Where is his self-righteousness when it comes to the fact that Biden’s open-border polices are enticing illegal immigrants to trek — mostly by walking — thousands of miles through treacherous regions in Central America and Mexico, often subjected to rape and torture. Many of those migrants are killed or otherwise lose their lives attempting to come here, but that does not trouble Biden enough to meaningfully discourage such illegal immigration. To do so would violate his campaign promise to allow open-border policies if elected.

The mayor knows if he toured the southern border he would find that everything Abbott and other officials in border states say about the humanitarian crisis along the border is true. The migrants he calls asylum seekers will likely not qualify for asylum. They come for economic reasons – to find jobs and support their families. Under current immigration laws, that is not a reason to be granted asylum. The migrants have been coached by immigration activists to make a claim for asylum whether they qualify for asylum or not.

Adams and the other mayors who are angry that Abbott is sending buses to their cities, like Muriel Bowser in Washington, D.C. and Lori Lightfoot in Chicago, should have the courage to take Governor Abbott up on his open invitation to do some fact-finding on their own. They just don’t want to see the truth for themselves – it would prove Abbott and Governor Ducey in Arizona right.