NEW YORK (PIX11) – The White House plans to send $100 million in previously promised aid and allocate thousands of housing vouchers in New York City to help alleviate the migrant crisis, New York Rep. Dan Goldman told PIX11 News on Wednesday.
Goldman also said more federal money would be on the way, and much of it will specifically go toward schools faced with educating the influx of migrant children. The government is expected to announce Wednesday that it will also send federal employees to the city to help get work authorizations for migrants.
“I’m quite happy to be able to report that there will be some immediate action taken to help address this crisis,” Goldman said.
The $100 million was previously announced in June, but its long-awaited arrival comes at a time of great financial strain for the city.
Mayor Eric Adams said the costs for the migrant crisis are estimated to be around $5 billion in this fiscal year alone. He said that over the next three years, the cost could increase to as high as $12 billion as more migrants continue to arrive in New York City.
As a result, Adams has ordered all city agencies to come up with a plan to make up to 15% budget cuts over the next several months.
Goldman said in an interview with PIX11 that some migrants are already eligible to work and just need to complete the application process. Migrants also won’t have to wait six months before they can start working, Goldman said.
Migrant arrivals in the city have topped 110,000, and about 60,000 are still being directly cared for by the city in emergency shelters. The roughly 14,000 HUD housing vouchers Goldman announced will help the city place homeless New Yorkers in permanent housing, freeing up shelter capacity for asylum seekers.
The promise of hundreds of millions of new federal dollars for education is also a welcomed. City schools take up about one-third of the budget and on Tuesday Schools Chancellor David Banks said no program would go untouched under potential budget cuts.
On Wednesday, PIX11 News asked U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand why the Democratically-controlled Senate has not undertaken comprehensive immigration reform. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives passed their own immigration bill months ago.
Gillibrand said she’s trying to do things in a bipartisan way, “but when I follow up, it’s just not coming together. I think there’s an ideological issue right now where there’s an unwillingness to change the law.”
