FIRST ON FOX: Amid the migrant crisis in the Big Apple, one New York House Republican is calling for state and local leaders in the Empire State to strongly denounce the Biden administration’s immigration policies as conditions at the southern border continue to deteriorate.
New York GOP Rep. Mike Lawler, whose district has been forced to deal with the massive influx of migrants in New York City, told Fox News Digital that now is the time for New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to speak out against President Biden’s blatant disregard for stronger border security measures.
Lawler, who represents New York’s 17th Congressional District, said the ongoing situation in New York City is a result of policies offered or supported by both Adams and Hochul.
“Both of them need to be voicing support for the fact that we need to enforce our laws,” he said. “We need to secure our border. We need to stop this massive influx of illegal immigration. They are bearing the consequences of their policy decisions, but also that of President Biden and his administration’s failure to enforce the law.”
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Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., center, told Fox News Digital now is the time for New York City Mayor Eric Adams, left, and New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, right, to speak out against President Biden’s blatant disregard for stronger border security measures. (Getty Images)
“It’s costing the state and the city billions of dollars every year to deal with this migrant crisis,” he added. “So, it’s illogical not to demand action at the root cause of it, which is our porous southern border.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began bussing migrants to New York City and other sanctuary jurisdictions last year. Abbott’s office has said it has sent around 27,000 migrants to New York City and has done so to relieve pressure on besieged border communities.
A handful of migrants expressed to one local outlet this month that they are aggravated with their taxpayer-funded living arrangements in the Big Apple, insisting that their living situation at the time differed immensely from that which they were allegedly promised.
“They told me that we would have a decent place to live. They told me I’d have support finding work. They told me I’d have support with my children. Those were lies,” Yenifer Vargas, the mother of three, told ABC 7.
While it is unclear who allegedly promised support for Vargas, the mother of three said the shelter she and her family had been living in — the so-called “tent city” at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field — was not a “decent place” for her children.
Like Vargas, Ayimar Araque told the outlet she also has struggled to apply for work authorization and complete certain casework because she cannot reach anyone by phone.
Asylum seekers wait outside the East Village re-intake center, a former Catholic school, to receive a shelter in New York City Jan. 3, 2023. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“I’m given a phone number that I’m supposed to call, but I get an answering machine,” she said at the time.
Asked about those comments, Lawler said he believes the “crisis of their own making” has been “handled horribly by the state and the city.”
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Pointing to the city’s decision to move migrants from that shelter to a nearby high school and force the students there into remote learning, as well as the costs of health care, food and education, Lawler said the city has “mismanaged” the crisis.
“It stems from their failed policies. Change your policies. Stop this sanctuary city nonsense. Start cooperating with ICE. Stop this interpretation of the right to shelter to mean that illegal immigrants are entitled to housing at taxpayer expense,” said Lawler, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“They need to stand up to the president and not demand more money, not demand work authorizations,” he added. “They need to demand the president secure the border.”
Echoing the sentiments shared by Lawler, House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, who represents New York’s 21st Congressional District, told Fox News Digital Hochul and other Democrats in the state have seemingly welcomed the migrants to the state through their support for certain policies.
House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (Haiyun Jiang/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Kathy Hochul and radical New York Democrats have incentivized the raging illegal and border crisis plaguing New York,” she said. “Illegal immigrants continue to arrive in New York state in record numbers, attracted by far left Albany Democrats’ failed open border and sanctuary state policies, overwhelming resources and costing New York taxpayers an additional $2.4 billion in 2025.
“Enough is enough,” she added.
Abbott claimed Monday that President Biden is in violation of federal law because he refuses to enforce immigration statutes already on the books, adding that Biden is giving “mass parole” to foreign nationals who illegally enter the United States.
Abbott told “Hannity” Monday evening both members of the Border Patrol and the Border Patrol Council, its union apparatus, have told Texas officials they side with them when it comes to the controversy over the construction of razor wire at a state-owned park along the border at Eagle Pass.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott claimed Monday President Biden is in violation of federal law because he refuses to enforce immigration statutes already on the books. (Getty Images)
“They want to have nothing to do with regard to tearing down that razor wire or tearing down the barriers that Texas has erected for one simple reason. And that’s because they are working,” Abbott said.
“Border patrol says that what Texas has done to secure the border actually makes their job even easier. The only resistance we’re facing is coming from Joe Biden.”
Fox News’ Charles Creitz contributed to this report.
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