We’ve become fluent in immigration-speak. “Asylum seekers,” “migrants,” “undocumented” and “sanctuary” — are familiar terms that polarize the Republican and Democratic parties and the opinions of the public at large. Now, Gov. Kathy Hochul hopes to rid New York of this chasm, if our state can settle on a price that satisfies everyone. We can bet it will be a dogfight.
Hochul’s budget office said Tuesday she plans to propose a $233 billion budget for the next fiscal year that would include almost $2 billion for the city’s migrant crisis. The proposed investment for migrants, a significant sum that figures to draw sharp criticism from Republicans, according to the New York Daily News. Republicans are likely to reject it outright or challenge it in court.
We have a criticism of our own to interject here. The proposed $2 billion would go to New York City and nowhere else. Granted, the city is ground zero for the crisis, but some of those funds could be sent to support upstate counties asked to tax their limited resources. Hochul and the Democratic-controlled legislature agreed to about $1 billion in funding for the asylum seeker challenge in the current cycle, but the governor — under pressure from her ally Mayor Eric Adams to help the city — has increased state migrant funding to $1.9 billion in the 2024 fiscal year budget.
The state’s plan drew a quick response from the Assembly’s Republican minority leader, Will Barclay: “Democrats have failed at the border and here in New York, and the price of their incompetence is going up,” Barclay told the Daily News.
A solution to the migrant crisis in New York will require more than money. It will require a solution for a culture that makes shipping immigrants out of town like so much cargo seem the right thing to do, a culture that tests the wills of upstate communities asked to absorb immigrants devoid of compassion and dignity. Until we end this culture, this humanitarian crisis will simply become inhuman.