State pols agree to give $1B to NYC for $4B-plus migrant crisis
ALBANY – State pols have agreed to shell out $1 billion to New York City to cover its tidal wave of migrants — whose staggering costs are already projected to exceed $4.3 billion by mid-2024.
“[Gov. Kathy Hochul] proposing a billion dollars and the Legislature accepting a billion dollars for the migrant crisis is an acknowledgment that we have to do something,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) said Monday at the Capitol.
“But in essence, this isn’t something that the city or the state should really be paying for,” he said. “We’re going to continue to ask our federal government to handle this.”
State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) has also already signed off on the migrant funding as Albany Democrats push for a new state budget 24 days past the April 1 deadline, sources said.
The billion-dollar expenditure appears to be roughly in line with what Hochul included in her draft spending plan that she unveiled Feb. 1.
That proposal included $767 million to house migrants, along with $162 million for related National Guard operations, $137 million for health care, $30 million for resettlement funding, $10 million for legal services and $6 million to support a shelter at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
Mayor Eric Adams has said the migrant situation is one of the greatest “humanitarian” crises the city has ever seen. Rod Lamkey – CNP
The funding, to be disbursed over the next year, represents a mixed victory for New York Mayor Eric Adams — as he continues begging President Biden to get the federal government to provide the billions of dollars necessary to avoid sweeping budget cuts in the Big Apple.
“The city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis,” Adams said during a lobbying trip to DC last week.
“The national government has turned its back on New York City. Every service in this city is going to be impacted by the asylum-seeker crisis.”
An Adams spokesman did not provide immediate comment Monday about the newly agreed state funding.
At least 56,000 migrants from countries such as Venezuela have arrived in New York City over the past year after illegally crossing the US Southern Border with Mexico and claiming asylum.
Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed roughly $1 billion in aid for migrants to New York City in the draft spending plan she unveiled Feb. 1. Matthew McDermott
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (left) said Monday that state legislators have agreed to $1 billion in funding to help New York City absorb the wave of migrants coming from the US southern border. Hans Pennink
Their arrival has strained Big Apple services to the breaking point, racking up $817 million in costs between July 2022 and March 2023, according to the city Office of Budget and Management.
The city is still waiting on approval for $654 million in grant money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency expected sometime before the end of May.
Adams has continued calling for the Biden administration to help New York City survive “one of the largest humanitarian crises that this city has ever experienced” but to no avail, despite a series of closed-door meetings with fed officials in recent weeks.
Authorities clean up a migrant tent city that had been constructed on West 57th Street. Christopher Sadowski
State pols say they are doing what they can for the city by joining the mayor’s call for more federal funding while making it clear that $1 billion for migrants is all the five boroughs can bank on from Albany in a state budget expected to top $227 billion.
“We all pressed the case on how the migrant crisis was affecting our states and some of our largest cities. And so I continued to ask the feds to do more,” Heastie said of a February meeting with White House officials and legislative leaders from other states.
Source: New York Post
