The Biden administration is sending $104.6 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to New York City to help the sanctuary city deal with a few thousand migrants calling the Big Apple home. NYC Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly called the influx of illegal immigrants a crisis, although only 2500 are arriving in the city each week. In total, an estimated 93,000 have arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022.
Meanwhile, in red border states such as Texas and Arizona, the crisis is real, and in the summer heat, deadly for the migrants. Over one sweltering July weekend in Texas, ten migrants were found dead at the border. In June, seventy were found deceased in Texas and Arizona.
In Tucson, Arizona, Border Patrol detained 40,000 illegals in July alone, the highest one-month average in fifteen years. The surge in Arizona’s immigration is because of Texas’ new policies on illegal crossings.
Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) is furious that aid is being sent to New York City rather than states that have been struggling with the Biden-era migrant flood, such as Texas, Arizona, and Florida. During an event in Yuma, Senator Sinema lashed out at the Biden administration.
“It is wrong and unfair that the money is going to places other than south Texas and south Arizona,” she said. “The fact that a yeoman’s amount of this money went to New York City, in my opinion, is wrong because they are not a border state, and they are not facing the kind of pressure that we are facing here. I want you to know that I am continuing to fight this, and I am livid.”
New York City’s Eric Adams isn’t the only mayor crying “uncle” and pleading for help in dealing with Biden’s migrants. Chicago and Washington D.C. are struggling to find the resources needed to handle the significantly smaller influx of illegals into their cities as well.
Adams went a step further, however, and quietly shipped some of his immigrants to Texas and Florida, the Canadian border, and even South America and China. From April of 2022 through April of 2023, Adams spent $30,000 to ship 114 illegal immigrant households across the nation, and in some cases, across the globe.
In a stunning display of hypocrisy, Adams shipped 14 migrant families to Texas and 28 to Florida. In September 2022, Adams accused Texas Governor Greg Abbot and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis of a “political stunt” when the two leaders sent illegal immigrants to New York City and, most memorably, Martha’s Vineyard. At the time, Adams accused the two governors of sending the immigrants to cities run by Black leadership. It was an odd accusation, considering that the cities all claim to be sanctuary cities.
Adams claims his motives for removing the unwanted immigrants are different than Abbott’s or DeSantis’. He points to Abbott chartering busses for the move and observes that New York City is paying for individual tickets for illegals who “want to leave the state.” Adams claims that the immigrants never wanted to go to NYC and were forced to sign waivers they didn’t understand when they left Texas.
In addition, the only free travel destinations available for migrants leaving Texas were buses heading to Chicago and New York City.
Adams claimed that some of the migrants wanted to go to Canada, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, China, and Colombia and that he was happy to facilitate the move to help them “continue to move on with their pursuit of this dream.”
Project Reconnect is a reticketing initiative offered by New York City to facilitate the removal of illegal immigrants from the city, but Adams still has 48,700 out of them seeking public assistance. With illegal immigrants now filling schools, shelters, parks, and even some jails, the problem is now one of optics.
Meanwhile, Sinema seethes because her state is forced to continue to deal with Biden’s immigrants without any federal aid. She explained in an interview that southern Texas and Arizona are bearing the brunt of failed immigration policies while cities across the nation are only seeing some elements of the crisis.
In a January 2023 photo-op moment, Adams toured El Paso, Texas, and demanded that the Biden administration stop illegal border crossings. At the time, he said that the government needed to intervene with a “short-term fix” to make sure that cities across the nation were not forced to pay for illegal immigrants.
Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries assured aid for New York City while ignoring the plight of other, significantly more affected cities in red states. It’s not an unusual move, but it is one guaranteed to be remembered in the 2024 election.
