We have this international
crisis that really requires federal
intervention, that local government is being asked
to subsidize. Local government is not
designed or built to handle such a crisis. Definitely both a
humanitarian crisis for the migrants that are
arriving and it is creating a fiscal crisis
for the city. I don't see an ending to
this. This issue will destroy New York City. The present migrant crisis
is quite unprecedented, both in scale, in the
diversity of the nationalities that are
coming to the border and the impact it's having
not only on the border states, but in the states
and cities inside the country. I think it's at this point
politically unsustainable for the Biden
administration to maintain this unlimited flow into
what's essentially a welfare state network of
cities like New York and Denver and Chicago. So how long can cities
withstand the recent surge of migrants, and what do
they need to end the crisis? We have to first
acknowledge that there is a crisis, because if you
don't acknowledge the crisis, you can't be in a
crisis mode. We have to be in a crisis
mode. And this crisis is
expensive. In 2018, New York City
spent roughly $258 million to fund its immigration
services, adjusted for inflation. By fiscal year
2023, the city had spent $1.47 billion servicing
those seeking asylum. The City of Chicago spent
over $194 million on its new arrivals mission
since October 2022. Denver is estimated to
have spent between $36.3 million to $39.1 million
on migrant support services in 2023. The three biggest items
for expenses for new arrivals is housing,
education and healthcare, and they are all three
high ticket items. The idea that we could
have a generous system of welfare benefits from
health to education and so on, and allow the entire
world to access those benefits is just
mathematically impossible. So we're starting to see
the math not adding up in state after state. The sheer volume of newly
arrived migrants is a major reason behind the
city's struggles. In fiscal year 2022, just
over 817,000 new cases were filed in immigration
courts across the U.S. That number exploded to
nearly 1.5 million new cases the following
fiscal year. The particular background
of current migrants also plays a role. The secret sauce of
migration has worked in the past is that people
would come, and they would not depend on the city
and state for settling them. They would depend
on their social networks. It seems in this case,
many of the people coming in are coming where there
not such in-built connections. Venezuelans
have been the largest source of nationality of
the new migrants. It is particularly true
that they don't have in-built connections. There are not Venezuelan
communities that have long standing. So they,
therefore, in the absence of private source of
comfort for them, then they become dependent on
the states and the cities. And the states and the
cities have limited resources. Although immigration has
primarily been an area of federal oversight,
experts say there just isn't enough federal
funding for cities to work with. The current level of
federal funding provided to state and local
governments is a drop in the bucket compared to
the need. Congress has provided a
very small amount of money of $800 million for a
FEMA program for the entire country for last
fiscal year to provide assistance to cities in
aiding these newcomers. But cities say this isn't
enough. For instance, the $145
million allocated to New York City is less than
10% of what the city spent on migrant services in
fiscal year 2023. This is a whole spectrum
of services needed for people who are new to a
place, new to a country, new to a city, everything
from finding warm clothes for them to finding jobs
for them, to finding shelter for them. These are complicated
issues to manage. So the city, the state
and the federal government, frankly, was
not prepared for it. Texas is providing charter
busses to send these illegal immigrants who
have been dropped off by the Biden administration
to Washington, D.C. We are sending them to
the United States Capitol, where the Biden
administration will be able to more immediately
address the needs of the people that they are
allowing to come across our border. So the historians will
probably record the current migrant crisis as
the chapter of bussing migrants. This kind of
coordinated, dramatic bussing of asylum seekers
from the border to the cities inside the
countries is completely unprecedented. Since the first bus of
migrants to Washington, D.C., Texas reported it
has transported over 100,000 migrants to
cities such as New York City, Chicago,
Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles. In 2023, illegal
immigration is estimated to have cost Texas
taxpayers $13.4 billion. According to the Texas
Newsroom, the state spent over $148 million bussing
migrants to sanctuary cities. As of January 24,
2024. The office of the
Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, did not respond
to CNBC's request for an interview. The two motives, I think,
behind it were one simply necessity that Texas
doesn't have the resources to cope with 150,000
people a day being released into the state. It's a big state. It's a
reasonably wealthy state, but they just simply
don't have the schools, the hospitals, the roads,
the housing to cope with that kind of influx. The staggering new record
more migrants crossed into the U.S. on Monday than
any other day in history. The current crisis of
forced displacement is a global phenomenon. There are more people
displaced worldwide than ever before, and one out
of every five displaced people is in the
Americas. But there are also pull
factors is that people have come to realize that
if they reach the United States border and they
seek asylum, then they'll be let in and then their
hearing will not happen for seven years, during
which time they are authorized to work in the
United States and they won't be deported. And
that has, I think, become a very important magnet. Second of all, it's to
make a point that those cities and states like
New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco that
claim that they are sanctuaries where anyone
from anywhere in the world has the right to go there
and live. Those cities should put
up or shut up. In the strategy
reminiscent of former President Trump's
suggestions for managing undocumented migrants,
other southern states, like Arizona and Florida,
have also engaged in the practice of flying and
bussing migrants to sanctuary cities and
states. Sanctuary cities refer to
a community with a policy, written or unwritten,
that discourages law enforcement from
reporting an individual's immigration status unless
it involves a serious crime. They want more people in
their sanctuary cities. Well, we'll give them
more people. We can give them a lot.
We can give them an unlimited supply. And let's see if they're
so happy. They say we have open
arms. They're always saying
they have open arms. Let's see if they have
open arms. The actions of southern
states have been criticized as a political
stunt. I think it's politically
motivated. I mean, it's certainly
not coming out of the goodness of heart or for
the concern of the migrants. I mean, the
governor of Texas was concerned about migrants,
which he alleged he was by bussing them. Then he
would have consulted the mayors and the governors
of the places he was sending them to. And he
would have just said, 'Look, this is a new
national crisis. Let's all go together to
President Biden and say this is a national crisis
where the federal government has to take
the lead in providing a solution.' Instead of
doing that, he just made it a political ploy for
the cities to feel the pressure. It's not just a publicity
stunt. He is, yes, sharing the
burden with states that have said that they can
absorb it. But he's also trying to
remove people from his state that he simply
doesn't have the resources to cope with. Critics also point out
that the lack of coordination from Texas
has made it more difficult for sanctuary cities to
deal with the crisis. If it happens slowly and
organically, it's easier to deal with when it
happens in a spurt. And I think that's what
happened in the case of the major northeastern
cities, where in the new chapter of bussing, a lot
of migrants showed up. It was unexpected and
unplanned for. Well, what warning does
Texas get when 300,000 people cross over every
month? I think it's a bit rich for the mayors of
cities up north to say, well, hang on a minute,
can you guys just slow things down? Give us some
more warning. Let us sort it out. I think that's a ploy. I think they should be
talking to the White House because the White House
has control over the flow. Texas doesn't have any
control whatsoever. As pressure continues,
cities like Chicago and New York have begun
putting more restrictions on migrant drop offs to
stem the flow in January 2024. Mayor Adams also
announced a lawsuit against charter companies
hired by Texas to transport migrants into
the city. But what cities say they need the
most right now is federal assistance. I think the federal
government was late coming to this. We should have
developed a mechanism for reimbursing impacted
states and cities early on. Unless we get the
reimbursement scheme under control, I think cities
will suffer for a long time. Even sanctuary cities that
said, 'come one, come all' are now begging the Biden
administration to unloose the coffers and get them
more federal money, which is why it's become such a
big issue in Washington, because you're asking
essentially, Congress that passed laws that
explicitly ban what the president is doing in
terms of catching and releasing people at the
border and his parole programs. You're asking
that same Congress that's watching the laws that it
wrote be flouted to pony up $20 billion or more,
to go to grants for people crossing the border, to
provide services in many cases that are not
provided to American citizens. So it's become
politically contentious. The Biden administration
told CNBC that they were unable to accommodate an
interview with CNBC, but the Department of
Homeland Security said that it is coordinating
with cities and states across the country to
identify ways it can continue to maximize its
support for local communities while
enforcing the law and returning or removing
those without a legal basis to remain in the
country. Even though the United
States is, what, $34 trillion in the hole and
growing at over a trillion a year of deficit? We do at least print
money and we can. Make more of it. Cities
and states, on the other hand, are not so blessed. Lots of cities like
Chicago and New York are getting into some pretty
serious debt. What tends to happen is
there's a snowball effect. You know, the city will
turn to the state and ask for a bailout, and then
the state will turn to the federal government and
ask for a bailout. So the solvency of our
big cities and our states is definitely in
question. For some experts,
containing the flow of immigration is vital in
solving the current crisis. The bussing from Texas is
a tiny, tiny fraction of the number of people who
are going to cities in the rest of the country. We have to simply limit
the number of asylum seekers who come to the
border. For others, it's about
fixing the immigration system that's long been
broken. Unless we have a more
orderly system with incentives for people to
come here and regular, actually accessible
pathways in the region, we will continue to see
irregular migration, and we will continue to see
people without the durable status that they need to
more quickly be able to sustain themselves and
also contribute to our economy and our economic
growth. However, the continued
politicization of immigration will only
make the issue more difficult to address. The more we politicize and
weaponize this issue, the less likely it is that we
will solve it. I'm an immigrant myself. I
came here when I was six. This country was built by
immigration, but it was also built by laws. And ultimately the number
of people that come into this country and the
terms under which they come is a decision that's
made by our elected officials. If we allow a
veto to the entire world to just bypass our laws
and do whatever they want, then we've lost our
sovereignty, our national sovereignty, and we've
lost the rule of law. So I regret that the
argument isn't a debate between left and right
about what immigration levels are in the
interests of the United States as a whole, and we
come up with a compromise where no one's happy. Instead, we just stay in
our corners and sling mud at each other. And
meanwhile, the border is wide open and no one's
happy.
