Metro
ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul downplayed a lack of action by President Biden on Monday to growing calls for federal aid to help New York City deal with the increasing deluge of migrants from the US Southern Border.
“I’m not offended the president hasn’t responded to something that came to their attention late Friday and it’s Monday afternoon,” Hochul said at an Albany press conference about a Friday letter she sent begging Biden to use federal land to house migrants.
“More time goes on, you’ll certainly be hearing from me again.”
The Biden administration has yet to say whether it will honor requests by Hochul and other elected officials to provide space for migrants on federal land while loosening work rules so asylum-seekers to lessen the financial burden on taxpayers.
Roughly 40,000 migrants, many escaping poverty and political dysfunction in countries like Venezuela, currently depend on New York City for housing, food, and other basic needs out of more than 60,000 total who have arrived since last August costing the city billions of dollars.
The federal government has yet to commit to any form of cost-sharing with the city following the approval of $1 billion in the new state budget.
With the city running out of space, Mayor Eric Adams began efforts earlier this month to bus hundreds of migrants to places like Rockland and Orange counties, sparking a backlash from local officials who claim their communities too lack the resources to accommodate migrants.
“I give a lot of credit to the mayor for what he has been having to deal with – and he’s at a breaking point,” Hochul said of Adams, who has criticized Biden for months over the crisis in much more outspoken terms than the governor.
A few migrants have received lodging at a Newburgh hotel though it remains unclear how long they will be able to remain there amid legal challenges.
“It’s not an issue of being inhumane or being insensitive … it is about we are at capacity as well,” Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente, a Republican, said Monday morning in a conference call organized by the New York Association of Counties.
The ongoing dispute between the Big Apple and counties to its north could ease if federal land were available to house migrants in places like Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, as Hochul proposed in her Friday letter to the president.
Members of the state congressional delegation sent a letter of their own to Biden requesting he cut down the roughly 180 days asylum seekers must wait to get permission to work.
Hochul, a loyal Biden ally, speculated Monday about why the Democratic president has yet to alleviate the “humanitarian crisis” she has blamed on US immigration policies that fail to keep up with the volume of people pouring over the border.
“I’m not saying we haven’t heard from the White House for a particular reason. Right now, they may be researching. They have to go to the Department of Defense for that. Floyd Bennett is actually run by the National Park Service right now. So I don’t think they could just do this and say make it happen,” Hochul said.
“Operations of government don’t always move as fast as we’d want but I assure you that our Washington team is laser-focused on getting the answer.”
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