NY’s illegal immigrant crisis escalates as blame game intensifies.
The Fight Over New York’s Illegal Immigrant Crisis
The fight over who’s to blame for New York’s illegal immigrant crisis is heating up as the city struggles to deal with an influx of more than 100,000 people from the southern border.
While the mayor of New York City and the state’s governor want the Biden administration to step up and address the border crisis, the White House is pushing the blame on Republicans.
Business executives joined the fight by sending an open letter, dated Aug. 28, to President Joe Biden and congressional leaders, urging them to address the “humanitarian crisis” that has overwhelmed New York City as well as the border area and other cities across the country.
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The letter was signed by more than 100 business executives, including big names such as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
“The New York business community is deeply concerned about the humanitarian crisis that has resulted from the continued flow of asylum-seekers into our country,” the letter reads.
“We write to support the request made by New York Governor [Kathy] Hochul for federal funding for educational, housing, security, and health care services to offset the costs that local and state governments are incurring with limited federal aid.”
Ms. Hochul labeled the problem a national issue in an address last week and asked President Biden to take responsibility for resolving it.
“This crisis originated with the federal government, and it must be resolved through the federal government,” she said. ”The borders and decisions about who can work are solely determined by the federal government.”
Ms. Hochul also requested that the federal government expedite work authorizations and provide financial support to New York in an Aug. 24 letter (pdf) to the president.
However, these remarks widened the rift between her and New York Mayor Eric Adams over the migrant crisis.
Mr. Adams pushed the blame on the governor and asked her to help the city.
“I think the governor’s wrong. She’s the governor of the state of New York. New York City is in that state. Every county in this state should be part of this,” Mr. Adams said on Aug. 29 during a speech at New York Law School.
“We have 0.05 of the land mass in this state, and we have almost 99 percent of the migrant asylum-seekers.”
The mayor has also asked President Biden to declare a “state of emergency” to assist the city in coping with a massive influx of migrants.
“We need to deal with this at the border. We need to have a decompression strategy. We have almost 108,000 cities across our entire country. Everyone should absorb this. They dropped this all on New York City,” he said during his speech, blasting the White House for leaving New York to handle the crisis on its own.
In another speech on Aug. 29, Mr. Adams said, “Any plan that does not include stopping the flow at the border is a failed plan.”
Ms. Hochul was invited to the White House to meet with the president’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, on Aug. 30 to discuss solutions to New York’s growing migrant problem.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the president’s border strategy, stating that his plan is slowing down the flow of unlawful migration. She said Republicans were to blame for the border crisis.
Ms. Jean-Pierre said the president has been addressing the border crisis on his own without getting help from Republicans in Congress.
She accused GOP lawmakers of refusing to provide the necessary funding to address the “broken” immigration system.
“What they choose to do is play politics,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said.
She also noted that work authorization for migrants is governed by current immigration laws and can only be changed by Congress.
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