NY GOV. KATHY HOCHUL BLAMES PRES. JOE BIDEN FOR THE MIGRANT CRISIS; BIDEN BLAMES HOCHUL AND NYC MAYOR ERIC ADAMS; ADAMS BLAMES HOCHUL, AND AROUND WE GO

THE FREE LANCE NEEDS YOUR DONATIONS TO SURVIVE. DONATE HERE.

Democrats are enjoying a orgy of blame over the migrant crisis.

Last Thursday, Gov. Hochul publicly shamed the Biden Administration for ignoring the crisis in a dramatic, live-streamed Internet broadcast.

“New York cannot continue to do this on its own,” Hochul pleaded. “It is past time for President Biden to take action and provide New York with the aid needed to continue managing this ongoing crisis.” 

But on Saturday, while Pres. Biden was vacationing in Lake Tahoe, the White House told New York to drop dead. 

"Only Congress can fix the broken immigration system," a White House spokesperson told The Free Lance. "Only Congress can provide additional funding." 

The Biden Administration added insult to injury on Monday by blaming New York for not better accommodating the 104,000-plus migrants who have already landed in the city—and continue to arrive by the thousands every week.

Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden's Homeland Security chief, castigated New York for alleged “structural and operational" failures in its handling of the migrant crisis. While his agency let suspected terrorists just walk into the country, Mayorkas accused New York of poor "data collection, planning, case management, communications, and other aspects of day-to-day operations.”

The Biden Administration's blast came in letters sent to Gov. Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, first reported by the Politico news blog.

Since Biden took office in Jan. 2021, more than 6 million people have been allowed to legally enter the US because they claim asylum, according to the Homeland Security department. That's just at the southern border and that's just people who legally entered. There are between almost 17 million and 11 million people not seeking asylum illegally living in the US. About 1 million live in New York. They cost the state and city about $10 billion annually.

Mayor Adams, for his part, warned back in April the "city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis.” He's asked Pres. Biden for help at least 37 times, according to a count compiled Aug. 10. 

“New York City is the economic engine of this entire state and country,” Adams said then. “If you decimate this city, you’re going to decimate the foundation of what’s happening.”

Migrants in New York City take advantage of a 1981 court settlement between the City and advocates for homeless New Yorkers that guarantees an enforceable legal right to shelter. No other state in the US and no other city in New York guarantees homeless people shelter. The City asked a judge to relieve it of its legal responsibilities under the 42-year-old settlement in May. The judge has not yet ruled on its request.

Advocates for homeless New Yorkers and the migrants are asking the judge to not only hold the City to the 1981 deal but to order the state to chip in cash and other kinds of help.

While a judge sorts it out, the Biden administration continues to allow people to simply stroll across the southern border, seemingly at will. 60,000 are presently in the City's care. They're housed at City expense in hotels, 193 shelters and 13 giant tent cities officials call "humanitarian emergency relief and response centers," according to the New York Pandemic Response Institute. So far, the City has spent $3.5 billion sheltering, feeding and otherwise caring for them. The City projects a total cost of more than $12.25 billion by 2025.

With city shelters overflowing, migrants are sleeping on the streets. The City has begun converting churches and schools in all five boroughs. Residents, many immigrants or the children of immigrants themselves, have started resisting the Government-assisted mass relocation of migrants into their neighborhoods where affordable housing was already vanishing.

Two protests broke out over the weekend, one outside Gracie Mansion and another outside an emergency migrant housing location on Staten Island. People were arrested at both.

"When it comes to the migrant crisis, the people of Staten Island have been failed by all three levels of their government," local Republican Assembly Member Mike Tannousis said in a news release.

The "federal government for not closing the border, the state government for not adequately dealing with the migrant crisis, and City Hall for continuing to accept migrants into shelters." 

The City has tried to send some of the migrants to smaller cities and even towns around the state. But 30 of New York’s 62 counties refuse to accept them—given the massive and rapidly swelling burden they place on the public treasury. It would require raising local taxes in sometimes far-flung places where people go cold for lack of money to buy home heating fuel through long, dark, freezing winters. 

Mayor Adams has asked Gov. Hochul to require counties who refuse to accept migrants to accept them. So far, she’s refused.

Gov. Hochul's decision whether to compel countries to accept migrants includes a significant political dimension for Democrats. It might motivate suburban and rural New Yorkers to vote them out of office en masse in the next election—if not eject them sooner by other means.

Still, on Tuesday, Mayor Adams escalated his criticism of Gov. Hochul for not compelling the counties.

"On this issue the governor is wrong,” Adams declared during a breakfast discussion at New York Law School.

“She’s the governor of the state of New York," Adams argued. "New York City is in that state. Every county in this state should be part of this.”

THE FREE LANCE NEEDS YOUR DONATIONS TO SURVIVE. DONATE HERE.