More than 110,000 migrants over the past year have entered New York City, an average of 10,000 migrants a month. At the Swanton Sector on the Northern Border there have been over 6,100 apprehensions from 76 different countries in just 11 months, surpassing the last 10 years combined. We have reports of murder and rapes committed by illegal immigrants in Upstate New York.
New York City’s shelters, schools, and healthcare systems are overrun, and it is estimated to cost taxpayers $12 billion over the next three years. Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams’ “sanctuary city” policies have only incentivized this crisis and now they are doubling down, asking for President Biden to take executive action and provide work visas, which would only further incentivize illegal immigration into our state. The crisis in New York City has gotten so out of hand that even Mayor Adams admitted that he doesn’t “see an ending to this” and later admitted that “this issue will destroy New York City.”
Local lawmakers are being forced to cut municipal services to pay for these additional migrants and have even resorted to kicking senior citizens out of their homes. New York City has already opened 200 emergency shelters, spent more than $2 billion to date, and expects to spend an additional $5 billion this fiscal year alone, just to deal with the crisis they created.
Included in their across-the-board cuts to pay for this is a reduction in overtime pay for our men and women in law enforcement and a freeze on additional hiring at a time when violent crime is rampant.
Penalizing our law enforcement community to free up the budget to pay for services for illegal immigrants is not only un-American, but dangerous and wrong. Now Mayor Adams wants to send illegal migrants to other parts of the state, including Westchester, Schenectady, SUNY campuses, and Massena International Airport in the North Country.
I proudly stand with the bipartisan coalition of local elected officials and the hardworking residents of these counties who oppose these relocations. Upstate New York and North Country residents should not have to bear the cost of Extreme Democrats' Far Left open border policies and the havoc they are causing.
Nationally, the trends are the same. There have been over 6 million illegal crossings since Joe Biden took office, with 232,972 illegals encountered in August of 2023 alone. The Southern Border has seen 216 encounters with people on the terrorist watch list, while the Northern Border has had 375 encounters. Half of those Northern Border encounters in 2023 happened at the New York border.
While President Biden, Extreme Democrats, and Far Left state politicians like Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams continue to ignore the chaos at our Southern and Northern Borders, House Republicans took charge in May and passed the Secure the Border Act of 2023, the strongest border security package in American history.
The Secure the Border Act delivers on House Republicans’ Commitment to America to end this border crisis. This critical legislation would force the Biden Administration to finish President Trump’s border wall, deploy technology to the southern and northern borders, increase the number of Border Patrol agents and provide bonus pay, require transparency from the Department of Homeland Security regarding illegal border crossings, strengthen current laws to protect children from human trafficking, end “catch and release”, and streamline the asylum process.
The quickest way for New York to end our illegal immigration crisis and for America to once again secure our Southern and Northern Borders is for Senator Schumer to pass and for President Biden to sign into law House Republicans’ Secure the Border Act of 2023. New Yorkers deserve nothing less.
