The Democratic governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, is borrowing a page from his Republican counterparts on the southern border and beginning to bus some of the thousands of migrants arriving in his state to large cities in the Northeast.

Mr. Polis said about 70 percent of the immigrants arriving in Denver from points south do not intend to stay there, so his office is working with “culturally competent navigators” to help with transportation to their desired final destinations. Many, apparently, want to go to New York, Chicago, and other eastern cities, and those cities are not happy about it.

“The stories I’ve heard firsthand from migrants are heartbreaking and we are helping these individuals complete their long and arduous journey,” Mr. Polis said in a statement. “States and cities cannot continue to bear this burden alone and Congress needs to finally step up — we need an immediate route to work permits, and to finally enact better border security and immigration reform.” 

In a radio interview Tuesday, New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, reiterated his frustration with the tactics of the western state governors and described the ongoing crisis at the border as a national embarrassment. He said the city has received at least 30,000 migrants in recent months and is struggling to provide shelter, health care, and other vital necessities to the impoverished arrivals.

“This is just unfair for local governments to have to take on this national obligation. We’ve done our job. There’s no more room at the inn,” Mr. Adams said on WABC, a refrain he has repeated often of late. “This is a national issue. It must have a national response …  I think the president has an obligation to deal with the immediate concerns. But when we talk about immigration, it is going to take a combination of the executive and the legislative body. We have to address this.”

Denver’s Democratic mayor, Michael Hancock, announced that 100 migrants were put on state-chartered buses headed to eastern cities on Tuesday. He said the city’s shelters are beyond capacity and called on the federal government, nonprofits, and businesses to assist in dealing with the influx of homeless migrants.

Denver has assisted more than 3,600 migrants since December 9, Mr. Hancock said, and nearly 850 are still housed in shelters run by the city. Another 871 are living in emergency shelters set up by partners in the private and nonprofit sectors.

“States and cities not on the border are ill-equipped to address these challenges, and absent federal support and leadership, we’re left to strategize and take actions to ensure this vulnerable population — people who’ve come here with no resources or means — are safe and treated humanely,” Mr. Hancock said. “I’ve talked with other mayors around the country and we’re united in our call for Congress to work with the Biden administration to provide the assistance we need to manage this situation.”

During the last fiscal year, which ended September 30, a record 2.4 million migrants were stopped and processed by the Border Patrol at America’s southern border. As many as 600,000 were reported to have evaded capture and faded into the country’s interior cities. The numbers arriving in the first two months of the current fiscal year have been even higher.

To date, the response from the Biden administration to the influx has amounted to little more than a shrug. In Tuesday’s press briefing, the White House spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, said the administration’s hands are tied by recent rulings from the Supreme Court that keep pandemic-era border restrictions in place and insisted that the administration is doing everything it legally can to “manage the border in a secure, orderly, and humane way.”

“To truly fix our broken immigration system, though, we need Congress to act,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said. “The Supreme Court’s order gives Republicans in Congress plenty of time, we believe, to move past political finger-pointing and join our Democratic colleagues to fix and to work to fix this problem and come forth with a comprehensive way to move forward.”

Mr. Biden announced Wednesday that he would likely be visiting the border for the first time in his presidency next week before or after a summit of North American leaders in Mexico City.