ALBANY — A new bill seeking to get a handle on New York’s growing migrant crisis would require state officials to vet and monitor migrants sent to New York from the US southern border.
Assemblyman Matt Slater, a Republican who represents parts of the Hudson Valley, where New York City Mayor Eric Adams has sent migrants in recent days, sponsored the measure in hopes it would bring some order to the state’s seemingly chaotic response to the flow of immigrant arrivals.
“It’s not denying the state’s responsibility to helping those who are seeking asylum, but it is providing security checks and balances and scrutiny to make sure that we’re protecting New Yorkers at the same time as protecting those seeking asylum here in our state,” Slater told The Post.
The Slater bill would require the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services to develop a state plan to fill what Slater called a gap in the government response to the migrants’ arrival.
“There is just no legitimate plan in place to deal with the crisis,” the freshman legislator said.
Assemblyman Matt Slater has introduced a bill to require the state to screen and track migrants arriving in the state from the US southern border. NYS Assembly Republican ConferenceThe “common-sense” legislation comes as New York City grapples with a growing deluge of migrants that has pushed the Big Apple to its fiscal breaking point.
The situation is expected to worsen in upcoming weeks following the midnight Thursday expiration of a federal rule that had allowed immigration officials to expel people with relative ease after they entered the country illegally.
Many of the migrants are seeking asylum after leaving impoverished countries like Venezuela. James Keivom“You can’t just continue to hand out blank checks when it comes to providing taxpayer-funded services without some kind of checks and balances in place,” Slater, whose district includes parts of Westchester and Putnam counties, told The Post.
He added that he would amend the current bill language to keep monitoring in place until asylum cases are resolved.
Gov. Kathy Hochul needs to develop a more comprehensive plan for dealing with the crisis, according to Slater, a freshman legislator. James Messerschmidt for NY PostMore than 60,000 migrants have arrived in the five boroughs since Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbot, and some Democratic officials, began sending people to New York last summer in order to shift the burden of accommodating them to blue states with immigration-friendly policies.
Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have called on President Biden to increase aid to the state while somehow wrangling a deal with Congress to overhaul the dysfunctional immigration system at large.
Migrants seeking social services would have to accept monitoring by the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, according to the legislative language. New York PostDozens of Republican colleagues have signed on as co-sponsors to the legislation, which Slater said will have a state Senate sponsor soon.
His idea faces an uphill path in Albany, where Democrats have supermajorities in both chambers with less than a month to go in the legislative session ending June 8.
