New York hits breaking point dealing with $15m a day migrants crisis
New York Mayor Eric Adams has warned urgent change is needed before the city is so far damaged it will never recover.
World
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New York is spending $15m a day to care for 113,000 migrants who have arrived since last year, in what Mayor Eric Adams says is a financial tsunami that will destroy the city.
But President Joe Biden – whose lax border policies have fuelled the crisis – has largely ignored New York’s pleas for help and could face electoral consequences as his popularity nosedives in the Democratic stronghold.
The influx of migrants was kickstarted by Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who loaded thousands of new arrivals on to buses to reduce the pressure on their states amid a record number of southern border crossings.
Since then, tens of thousands of migrants have followed them to New York – the only major US city with a legal right to shelter.
Almost 60,000 migrants are currently in the city’s shelters, with each family costing taxpayers $US383 ($A593) a day for housing, food, medical care and social services.
Mr Adams said that with up to 10,000 migrants arriving every month, the number needing shelter would hit 100,000 by 2025, costing $US12bn ($A18.6bn) over three years.
“I don’t see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City,” he recently warned.
“The city we knew, we’re about to lose.”
New York is already spending more this year on the crisis than Boston’s entire budget, including to educate 20,000 kids who have entered public schools.
Authorities have opened more than 200 shelters at hotels, gymnasiums, cruise ship terminals, soccer fields and defence sites. But protests have recently intensified as residents push back on migrants moving into their communities.
In Staten Island, where migrants are housed in a former school, a speaker was set up blasting messages at 117 decibels – louder than a rock concert – telling them “the community wants you to go back to New York City”.
Curtis Sliwa, the founder of a public safety group and Mr Adams’s 2021 election opponent, told Brooklyn protesters: “This is our battle for our neighbourhoods, for our children, for our grandparents … this is a battle for our city.”
While Mr Adams has tried to move migrants upstate, Rockland County executive Ed Day said that was “akin to human trafficking”, while New York Governor Kathy Hochul also criticised the move which heightened tensions with her Democratic colleague in Manhattan.
But Ms Hochul and Mr Adams have both demanded Mr Biden intervene, including to give migrants permission to work, open federal facilities for shelter, and cover the ballooning costs.
“It is the federal government’s direct responsibility to manage and control the nation’s border,” the governor said.
Migrants have resorted to working illegally while waiting six months for permits, with subway stations filled with children selling drinks and snacks, and adults riding food delivery bikes.
Many of the city’s arrivals last year were from Venezuela, where more than seven million people have fled in the world’s second largest displacement crisis.
On Thursday, the Biden administration finally fast-tracked work permits for Venezuelan migrants. The decision was praised by Mr Adams, who was removed from Mr Biden’s re-election committee earlier this year after he said the President had “failed New York City”.
The Biden administration has provided just $US140m ($A216.8m) to New York while arguing it cannot fix the nation’s broken immigration system without Congress taking action.
Democratic members of Congress, who last week talked up federal efforts outside a hotel housing hundreds of migrant families, were drowned out by protesters yelling “close the border” and “send them back”.
According to a Siena College poll, 82 per cent of New Yorkers believe the influx is a problem and 58 per cent want action to stop more migrants arriving.
Pollster Steven Greenberg said that, for the first time, more New Yorkers viewed Mr Biden unfavourably than favourably, with only 46 per cent satisfied with his performance.
The President’s 13-point lead over Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2024 election rematch is among the lowest for a Democratic candidate in New York in recent memory.
Mr Adams said the influx of migrants had recently extended beyond Venezuelans to “people from all over the globe” crossing the southern US border and to New York, despite his administration distributing fliers at the border telling migrants to go elsewhere.
Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said migrants had more recently arrived from other US cities which were not required to provide shelter.
About 13,000 migrants have been bussed from Texas, which Mr Abbott said provided “critical relief to overwhelmed Texas border towns”.
Mr Adams is now slashing government spending by 15 per cent, saying all services will be affected by the “financial tsunami”.
“While our compassion is unlimited, our resources are not,” he said.
“We are past our breaking point.”
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