New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul amped up her pleas to the Biden administration on Thursday to move with urgency on authorizing work permits for the more than 100,000 migrants who have landed in New York City over the past year.
Hochul sent a letter to President Joe Biden dated Thursday and also gave a 10-minute address from Albany. Whereas she has been reticent to criticize the administration in the past, choosing instead to work private channels, Hochul on Thursday was pointed in her appeal to the White House to grasp the urgency of the situation.
"New York has shouldered this burden for far too long. There does not appear to be a solution to this federal problem anytime soon. This crisis originated with the federal government, and it must be resolved with the federal government," Hochul said in her address, which coincided with the letter she sent that highlighted four must-haves the state needs urgently to deal with the migrant crisis.
"For me, the answer to these two crises a humanitarian crisis and our workforce crisis — is so crystal clear and common sense. Let them get the work authorizations; let them work; legally, let them work," Hochul said.
Hochul added that there are roughly 460,000 job openings in New York, more than enough to meet the demand coming from migrants seeking employment.
Hochul wants to get migrants out of the shelters and into employment while they wait for their asylum cases to get processed.
"We have countless unfilled jobs that are begging for someone to just take them," she said in her address.
In addition to expediting work authorizations, Hochul in her letter also demanded "significant financial assistance" from the government, urged the White House to convert federal facilities in New York City and the metropolitan area into temporary shelters, and said the federal government should reimburse New York for deploying the National Guard.
Hochul said the state is spending more than $22 million per month to support 1,950 National Guardsmen.
"The flow of asylum seekers and migrants into New York is continuing at a high and unabated level," Hochul concluded in her three-page letter. "It is the federal government's direct responsibility to manage and control ... the nation's borders. Without any capacity or responsibility to address the cause of the migrant influx, New Yorkers cannot then shoulder these costs.
"I cannot ask New Yorkers to pay for what is fundamentally a federal responsibility and I urge the federal government to take prompt and significant action today to meet its obligation to New York State."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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