I wonder if the South Side voters who voted for Mayor Johnson expected him to set up tent cities for migrants in their neighborhoods. Based on their reactions I expect not.
Perhaps it’s ghoulish of me but I couldn’t help but notice that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his New York Times op-ed on fixing our immigration system identifies the influx of migrants crossing our southern border as a crisis. The message is clear. When too many migrants cross our southern border into Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, it’s a curiosity. When there are too many migrants in New York City, it’s a crisis. Here’s his statement of the problem:
We have a system that essentially allows an unlimited number of people to cross our borders, forbids them from working, offers them free housing, and grants them seven years of residency before ruling on whether they can legally stay. It would be hard to devise a more backward and self-defeating system.
which is a jumble of failures of national policy and problems local to New York. While I’m in broad agreement that our system needs revision and that there is a crisis, I’m not entirely in agreement with his arguments which are a combination of the persistence theory and an appeal to emotion or his proposals which, while reasonable enough, do not appear to me to be a crisis response. He proposes that the federal government appropriate enough money to handle the influx, allow the migrants to work immediately, and pay for their shelter, food, etc. until they can pay their own way. I challenge Mayor Bloomberg to prove their is a grave demand for workers without college educations. I do not believe there is such demand and his proposal has a serious moral hazard problem.
My response to the crisis at our southern border would be to send our military to the border to control it including enough JAG officers to adjudicate the asylum claims and handle them immediately. Mayor Bloomberg is right about one thing: the preponderance of people coming across our southern border are fleeing poverty and gang violence which are not legitimate causes for asylum. Undoubtedly, that’s why the overall percentage of asylum claims granted is under 50%. The job-seekers impede our ability to handle the claims of people fleeing political and religious persecution which are legitimate causes for asylum.
I have thought for a long time we should enlarge those courts. I dont really know if we have JAG officers. I think we could offer to pay for law school in return for people agreeing to work these courts for some specified time. I also think the laws should/could be changed.
Steve
To get a sense of the problem. For all the publicity, Texas bussed 13,000 migrants to New York City. Over 110,000 made their way to New York City through their own means.
Said another way New York’s problem is federal policy conjoined with New York policy.