Category: New York

“New York City Moves to Suspend Right-to-Shelter Mandate” (NYT, today):

Mayor Eric Adams is seeking to suspend New York City’s longstanding obligation to provide shelter to anyone who asks for it, as officials struggle to find housing for thousands of migrants arriving from the southern border.

On Tuesday night, Mr. Adams asked a judge to allow the city to put aside its legal obligation to provide shelter to single adults, arguing in court that the city should be able to temporarily lift the mandate during an emergency.

“With more than 122,700 asylum seekers having come through our intake system since the spring of 2022, and projected costs of over $12 billion for three years, it is abundantly clear that the status quo cannot continue,” Mr. Adams said in a statement.

In a letter to Erika Edwards, a New York Supreme Court justice, the city’s lawyers asked for the 1981 consent decree that requires the city to provide shelter to be temporarily suspended. They also asked for the rules to be suspended whenever the governor or mayor declares a state of emergency and there is an influx of people seeking shelter.

Poor native-born New Yorkers, in other words, would lose their right to shelter because elite New Yorkers offered sanctuary to migrants and then migrants accepted the offer. Also, why is the requested suspension “temporary”? Venezuela is not going to run out of people who want to come to the U.S., right? (see When will there be more Venezuelans in the U.S. than in Venezuela?)

I still can’t figure out why NYC is having trouble parking newcomers. “NYC lost 5.3% of its population — nearly a half-million people — since COVID, with most heading South” (New York Post, May 2023).

More from the New York City elites, quoted in the above-cited NYT article:

A top aide to Mr. Adams, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, recently called on the federal government to “close the borders.” Mr. Adams sought to distance himself from those comments on Tuesday, reiterating his position that the border should not be closed, but that migrants should be sent to other cities.

Separately, a neighbor provides sanctuary for those who identify as witches…

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“Hochul issues dire warning to migrants coming to NY: ‘We are truly out of space’” (New York Post):

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday warned that New York is “at capacity,” and urged newly arrived migrants to settle someplace else — as the Biden administration cleared the way for Venezuelan migrants to get work permits.

Hochul told NY1 that granting temporary protected status to and expediting work permits for thousands of Venezuelans who entered the US before July 31 is “an important first step” in getting expedited work status for all migrants.

But the governor warned that New York is “at capacity” and suggested that migrants who have arrived since July 31 consider other cities to settle in.

“We have to let people know that if you’re thinking of coming to New York, we are truly out of space,” she said.

“The mayor has done an extraordinary job managing this crisis situation. We have been partners in helping him, but there must be other cities that do not have upwards of 125,000 people, over 60,000 in shelters, that can handle the volume easier in other states.”

The politician reminds us of the Scientific truth that low-skill migrants make existing Americans richer:

“We have to have more workers, and this is going to be a very, very positive development for our state’s economy, for these individuals and our desire to start not opening more shelters, but starting to shut down shelters,” she added.

Question 1: Why do New Yorkers want to transfer their migrant wealth to other cities/states?

Question 2: Where exactly do New Yorkers think that migrants should go?

From Gov. Hochul’s own site:

It is strange that the word “crisis” is used to describe a phenomenon that makes existing New Yorkers wealthier (at least the elites), reduces crime, etc. We don’t usually say it is a “crisis” when we are becoming better off.

Related… “Will Work Authorization Draw More Venezuelan Migrants to the U.S.?” (New York Times):

The news that the Biden administration would grant work permits to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants who had already entered the United States was welcomed by Democratic leaders from cities overwhelmed with a large influx of migrants unable to work legally.

The hope is that the move will let many Venezuelans make enough money to move out of shelters, where the cost of housing them is straining big cities, especially New York. But could it end up backfiring by attracting even more Venezuelan migrants to cross the border?

The newspaper informs us that low-skill migrants make existing Americans better off. Why would it be “backfiring” if we end up with more migrants and become “more better” off?

Yordano Negren, 28, a hair stylist from Valencia who arrived about three weeks ago and has been staying in a Midtown shelter, said that more migrants would mean more competition for jobs.

“I imagine that it will bring many more Venezuelans here to New York,” he said. “But there are already too many Venezuelans here looking for work, trying to start a new life. Too many Venezuelans, too many Haitians, too many Dominicans. Everyone is looking for work, and this change is just going to bring more people.”

Mr. Negren agrees with the Harvard economists and César Chávez:

In the mid-70s, Chávez launched what he called the Illegals Campaign, an effort to raise awareness about illegal immigration and report undocumented workers to federal authorities.

”The idea was – much like we’ve heard today – ‘Well, the Border Patrol isn’t doing a good job at keeping people from crossing illegally. So we’re going to have to go out and do it ourselves,’ “ Pawel said.

The most intense aspects of this informal effort, however, did not take place in the form of secret phone calls to the government; they took place right along the border. In an effort led by César’s cousin Manuel Chávez, reports began to emerge of Mexican immigrants being threatened, beaten and robbed as they tried to cross over into the United States.

At one point, the patrol operation was so large, it employed 300 people and cost the UFW $80,000 a week.

To Chávez, the civil rights era leader who swore nonviolence, any influx of foreign labor represented a threat to the farmworkers’ movement. The people who crossed the border illegally were in search of a better life. But they were also scabs, willing to do the jobs that American farmworkers were organizing to improve.

“All of a sudden yesterday morning, they brought in 220 wetbacks – these are the illegals from Mexico,” Chávez said in an interview with KQED in the ‘70s. “There’s no way to defend against that kind of strikebreaking.”

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Back in 2016, approximately 22 million undocumented migrants lived in the U.S. (Yale study, published 2018). Let’s assume that today’s undocumented migrant population is closer to 30 million. From the August 31 New York Times… “As Migrant Crisis Worsens, New York Leaders Pressure Biden to Do More”:

A broad coalition of civic, business and union leaders has come together to apply pressure on Washington to help with the migrant crisis in New York. … Washington has failed to adequately address the migrant crisis that has overwhelmed the city in recent months.

Of the 107,000 migrants who have arrived since last year, almost 60,000 are still in the city’s care. … The city has opened over 200 sites and humanitarian relief centers to house and process the migrants, which officials estimate will cost $5 billion this year, as much as the budgets for the parks, fire and sanitation departments combined.

Mr. Adams said the current flow of migrants could cost $12 billion over three years, exceeding the city’s current fiscal and physical capacity to deal with the crisis…

Adams later elaborated about New York City actually being destroyed (see NYC mayor: Texas governor a “madman” for wanting to send city-destroying migrants away from Texas).

Let’s check some photos from my August 22-23, 2023 trip to Manhattan to see whether NYC is, in fact, being destroyed.

What if the migrants want to relax with some 2SLGBTQQIA+-friendly alcohol? Note the “Bud Light” at the top left of the “Open For All” rainbow neon sign.

Perhaps they prefer healing cannabis? New (“essential”) marijuana stores are opening in every neighborhood:

What about COVID? It does not make sense to move out of the crowded city when one can instead don a mask. At the Union Square Greenmarket:

What would you see if you were brave enough to enter the subway?

On any journey into the subway, we are reminded that Pfizer is taking care of us. From Grand Central Station:

Do you want to learn about the “beautiful complexities of the LGBTQIA+ experience”? A Manhattan sidewalk is the place to do it.

(It was a hater from out of town who wrote “all lie” on the sign about the three local queer artists?)

NYC still has plenty of garbage:

My friend who lives in Lower Manhattan attributes a spike in the rodent population to the “rat hotels” that restaurants have built in the street, each one raised up just enough to provide a cozy condo for multiple rat families. Good luck seeing whether a car is coming:

Note that the rat hotel’s floor is flush with the sidewalk:

Rats can also live in the middle of the street:

(See “‘Rat tours’ boom in rodent-infested New York” (the Guardian, 9/4): “sightings doubled last year”)

My departure from Teterboro was marred by a horrifying scene of inequality:

Related:

• If New York City has a falling population, why doesn’t it have room for migrants? (May 2023)
• Climate Emergency question: Should migrants be evacuated from dangerous southern states and taken to safety in California and the Northeast? (climate crisis meets migrant crisis)

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With some combination of federal, state, and city tax dollars, New Yorkers are buying child care for migrants. From https://www.nyc.gov/content/getstuffdone/pages/promise-nyc :

This page is a little confusing. It says “the program will help newly arrived asylum seekers.” But newly arrived asylum-seekers are not legally able to work in the U.S. (nytimes). Why aren’t migrants able to take care of their own children if they’re not at work?

After paying federal, state, and city income tax to fund this and other social justice programs, how much do working New Yorkers have left over for their own kids’ care? Not enough, says the NYT… “How Soaring Child Care Costs Are Crushing New Yorkers”:

All but the wealthiest New Yorkers — even the upper middle class and especially mothers — are scrambling to afford care that will allow them to keep their jobs.

A New York City family would have to make more than $300,000 a year to meet the federal standard for affordability — which recommends that child care take up no more than 7 percent of total household income — to pay for just one young child’s care. In reality, a typical city family is spending over a quarter of their income to pay for that care…

What solution does Science offer? What’s not affordable on an individual basis will become inexpensive as soon as it is 100-percent government-funded:

But experts say that none of those efforts have tackled the core issue of extremely low wages for child care employees. Beyond raising pay rates, they said, the city and state could fully fund child care for 3-year-olds, ensure that providers are paid on time and give them more training,

Separately, at a party in Norwalk, Connecticut last month I learned about a consultant paid by NYC parents to help get their kids into the selective preschools (a child who gets into the right preschool is set up to get into the elite elementary school and that sets him/her/zir/them up to get into the elite high school and that, plus a compelling essay on comparative victimhood, sets the child up to get into an elite college). She earns over $1 million per year.

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“Critics condemn New York mayor for saying migration crisis will ‘destroy’ city” (The Guardian):

The mayor of New York, Eric Adams, has said an increase in migration would “destroy” the city, seemingly blaming the Biden administration for failing to provide federal support as much as the Republican governors who have sent asylum seekers north.

“Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this,” Adams said. “This issue will destroy New York City.”

More than 110,000 migrants have arrived in New York since last year, Adams said, adding that governors of Republican states had bussed asylum seekers to the city without coordinating with New York officials. Adams seemed to specifically refer to the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, who bussed immigrants to Democratic-led cities including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

“We’ve turned this city around in 20 months,” Adams said. “And then what happened? Started with a madman down in Texas, decided he wanted to bus people up to New York City: 110,000 migrants.”

Are the above statements logically consistent? The presence of a handful of migrants (out of the tens of millions that have enriched the U.S. in recent years; note that Yale estimated 22 million undocumented migrants in the U.S. as of 2016) will “destroy New York City,” according to the mayor. At the same time, a Texan who sought to send these purported city-destroyers away from Texas is an irrational “madman”.

Separately, why can’t New York City easily find room for 110,000 migrants? The population fell by 468,000 from April 2020 through July 2022, according to “NYC lost 5.3% of its population — nearly a half-million people — since COVID, with most heading South” (New York Post). Still plenty of space inside Grand Central Station (photo from last month):

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