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“The surge of migrants crossing the southern border has overwhelmed [New York] city, with nearly 60,000 occupying beds in traditional city shelters and in more than 200 emergency sites. As New York City students returned to school on Thursday, city officials said that about 20,000 migrant children were expected to join them.” New York Times
“Days after declaring [that] the migrant crisis would destroy New York City, Mayor Eric Adams warned agency heads they must slash their budgets by 15 percent by next spring to compensate for increasing asylum-seeker costs… “The city has projected the cost of the migrant crisis will rise to $12 billion by the 2025 fiscal year… ‘The simple truth is that longtime New Yorkers and asylum-seekers will feel these potential cuts — and they will hurt,’ Adams said in a prepared speech that coincided with a City Hall press release released Saturday. ‘New Yorkers are angry and frustrated, and they’re right to be. I am too.’” Politico
The left argues that New York can afford to help the migrants and urges the federal government to grant them work authorization.
“New York State, standing alone, would be the 12th-largest economy in the world, generating an incredible $2 trillion in economic activity every year — more than the entire gross domestic product of South Korea or Australia, and roughly equivalent to that of Canada. Most of that output is driven by our city and its residents (including the 136 billionaires who live here), who pay enough in taxes to support a $107 billion municipal budget…
“If, as Adams estimates, helping migrants will cost $4 billion per year over the next three years — what Mayor Worst Case describes as ‘a $12 billion deficit that we’re going to have to cut’ — that amounts to 3.7 percent of the budget. Inconvenient and painful, yes. But destroy our city? Not even close. A year ago, Adams ordered agencies to freeze hiring and reduce budgets by 3 percent. Gotham survived.”
Errol Louis, New York Magazine
“Biden has a policy move at his disposal that could better manage this mess: Extend work permits to many of the migrants so they don’t rely on New York for help… As [NYC] officials note, around 40 percent of migrants are coming from Venezuela. The United States has granted [temporary protected status] to Venezuelans who arrived only through early March 2021 — so the mayor’s team wants TPS designated to Venezuelans who have arrived since then.”
Greg Sargent, Washington Post
“The process of receiving a work authorization can take a year or longer. In the meantime, how are asylum seekers expected to pay rent and feed themselves and their families? This amounts to state-enforced poverty and vagrancy — against people who have shown extraordinary fortitude and grit in journeying here, often at great risk, for the opportunity to work and build a better life…
“Meanwhile, the federal government is failing to provide the resources necessary to hear asylum cases in anything approaching an expeditious fashion. It can take six or seven years for an applicant’s case to be resolved… Justice delayed, as the saying goes, is justice denied. Congress should provide the resources the administration needs to ensure that asylum claims can be resolved in days or weeks, not years.”
Michael R. Bloomberg, New York Times
“Congress has not passed comprehensive immigration reform since 1990 despite significant changes which have taken place in the intervening decades, such as climate change, conflict, and serious economic hardship accelerating migration. Stopgap solutions like visas for undocumented workers and paths to citizenship programs, as well as more draconian measures, such as labelling any undocumented person a felon, have all failed over the years. As a result, dysfunction has crept into every level of government, from Congress to City Hall.”
Ellen Ioanes, Vox
The right argues that the crisis has been caused by lax federal immigration enforcement, and that it will not be resolved until the border is secured.
The right argues that the crisis has been caused by lax federal immigration enforcement, and that it will not be resolved until the border is secured.
“Adams still cannot admit what is causing the crisis that he says threatens to destroy his city. ‘It started with a madman down in Texas deciding he wanted to bus people up to New York City,’ Adams said, referring to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), who several months ago began busing groups of willing immigrants to New York. But here's the thing: Abbott recently announced that Texas has sent a total of just more than 13,300 immigrants to New York since August 2022. New York, however, said it has received more than 110,000 immigrants…
“How did the [other] 97,000 get to New York? First of all, the Biden administration appears to be directly arranging flights of illegal border crossers to the New York area… ‘One attraction’ for the illegal border crossers is ‘New York's self-designation as a sanctuary city.’ The immigrants know the city will feed them, give them a place to stay, deliver other social services, educate their children, give them a municipal ID and a driver's license. Even if they get in trouble with the law, they know they will not be turned over to immigration authorities.”
Byron York, Washington Examiner
“New York politicians are clamoring for Washington to give the hundreds of thousands of migrants living in the city work permits, arguing that, as Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) puts it, ‘many businesses suffer from labor shortages.’ But this argument ignores the massive decline in labor force participation among the less-educated in New York…
“[The] Labor force participation rate for US-born men (16 to 64) without a bachelor’s in New York has declined dramatically from 88% in 1960 to 74% in 2000, and to just 66% in April of 2023… We face a clear choice: either we address the decline in labor force participation, or we continue to allow in ever more immigrants to fill jobs and then somehow deal with all the social pathologies that come from so many working-age people not working.”
Steven Camarota, New York Post
“There are a lot of angry people out there and they are not angry about Albany and Washington’s alleged failure to send enough money to deal with this crisis. They are angry that they are being overrun with migrants. As of this week, they are angry that their schools are being flooded with migrant children, many of whom do not speak English and have dubious documentation at best, and some of their own kids are being moved to ‘overflow classrooms’ that were used during the pandemic…
“Eric Adams may not realize it yet, but he could very well be putting his own political neck on the chopping block here. Even in a city with such a vastly disproportionate majority of Democrats, there is only so much that people will put up with. If this situation isn’t properly addressed in a permanent fashion soon, Adams, Kathy Hochul, and Joe Biden might just accomplish what has long been thought impossible. They might turn New York red in 2024.”
Jazz Shaw, Hot Air
