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Asylum seekers fill the sidewalk outside of the Roosevelt hotel in midtown Manhattan, New York City.
“This will destroy New York City”: What the Big Apple’s immigration crisis tells us about the 2024 elections
Immigration has long been a hot button issue in US politics, typically pitting Republicans, who advocate for tougher crackdowns on undocumented migrants, against Democrats, usually more open to asylum seekers. But New York City is currently flipping the script on that.
This week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams – a Democrat – gave a scathing address about the influx of migrants who’ve entered the city over the past year, around 100,000 in total. Many have been bused in from Republican-run states.
Adams said that another six buses carrying migrants arrived in the city on Wednesday, and blasted the White House’s immigration policy. This will “destroy New York City,” he said.
(Read more about the factors leading to an uptick in migration to the US here and here.)
A recap. Over the past year, Republican governors in Texas and Florida have sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-run “sanctuary cities” that have a range of policies that aim to protect undocumented migrants’ rights. Cynical GOP ploy? Maybe. But the strategy has brought into renewed focus the argument that traditionally pro-migrant Democratic states on the coasts don’t appreciate the systemic pressures facing border states.
It isn’t just the mayor. Adams, an unpredictable politician who’s also a former cop and a former Republican, isn’t the only New York Democrat calling out the Biden administration. Gov. Kathy Huchul, a party stalwart broadly regarded as a Biden ally and a pragmatist, has also taken aim at the White House for the current crisis, which has seen around 10,000 migrants enter the state per month, putting immense pressure on local budgets that need to fork out funds for housing, schooling, and meals.
Adams says the governor has been too slow to dole out state funds to help the city cope and that the federal government should be doing more both to slow the flow of migrants and to support the city’s ability to absorb those who make it through.
Both Hochul and Adams have called on the White House to expedite work authorizations for asylum seekers to ease pressure on the city and state. Biden, currently touring Asia, has stayed mostly mum.
Democrats in general have good reason to be worried about how this is playing. Last year’s midterm elections were disastrous for the New York branch of the party, with Republicans – who ran largely on an anti-crime agenda – making gains in suburban areas throughout the state.
With immigration a top concern for many US voters, and 82% of New Yorkers polled describing the migrant influx as a “serious problem,” the Democratic Party is in a difficult spot: Any efforts to slash funding for the 57,000 migrants currently in New York City’s care – which some Dems in vulnerable seats have backed – will ignite the left. But doing too much could create more backlash in more moderate or swing district areas of New York state that the party needs to win in order to take back the House of Representatives next year.
Critical lifeline: remittances and the developing world
Remittances offer a vital lifeline to some 800 million people around the globe. In Mexico, the migrant advocacy group APOFAM highlights how groups of people can work together to make a difference for families impacted by migration. APOFAM’s members are related to migrants who have moved to the US, many of them undocumented, and the group helps pool resources to aid Mexicans. Whether it’s a Mexico-based mother of two whose husband works in the US or a group of elderly artisans, APOFAM helps people flourish thanks to remittances.
Watch our recent livestream discussion on remittances and other tools for economic empowerment.
Vaccine politics and human rights
More than 32 million COVID shots have now been administered globally, raising hopes that the light at the end of the tunnel is now in sight.
The US has vaccinated 3 percent of its total population, while the UK is nearing a solid 5 percent inoculation rate. In Israel, which has been hailed as a vaccine success story, almost 24 percent of people have already received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.
But while many countries are able to glimpse the outlines of a post-COVID world, there is a huge population of people who are being left out entirely. Refugees, as well as displaced, undocumented, and stateless people around the world remain ineligible for inoculations and vulnerable to the coronavirus.
We take a look at three case studies where powerless populations are being left in the lurch.
Colombia's Venezuelan migrant dilemma. The dire economic and political crises under the Maduro regime in Venezuela have plunged 65 percent of households into poverty and caused widespread food and medicine shortages. As a result, 1.7 million desperate Venezuelans have spilled over into neighboring Colombia, putting a massive strain on Colombia's already weak public infrastructure.
Now Colombian President Ivan Duque says that those who don't have formal migration status will not have access to Colombia's vaccine stash, meaning that around 935,000 Venezuelan refugees will be ineligible for the shot. Duque claims the policy is aimed at prioritizing the wellbeing of Colombians first amid a surging outbreak, and avoiding a rush on the border as more Venezuelans clamor to get the vaccine. But public health experts say that the move isn't just a humanitarian failure, it's also an epidemiological one that will hamper Colombia's efforts to root out the disease, because a successful vaccine drive should be as broad as possible.
Israel shirks responsibility to Palestinians. Israel has been broadly praised for its ambitious vaccine drive, now leading the world in COVID vaccinations per capita by a long shot. At this rate, the government aims to vaccinate the entire population of 9 million by the end of March, a remarkable feat as vaccine rollouts remain sluggish across North America and Europe.
But Israel's vaccine drive excludes millions of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, as well as the Gaza Strip (though the Strip is run by the Islamist Hamas militant group and not the internationally-recognized Palestinian Authority).
Israeli officials say that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has not reached out for assistance with vaccine procurement, an odd justification for inaction during a once-in-a-generation global crisis. They also argue that under the terms of the Oslo Accords, the de-facto law of the land, the Palestinian Authority oversees healthcare for its people. (Arab citizens of Israel are in fact being vaccinated.)
But application of international law here is murky: while the Oslo Accords gave the Palestinian Authority responsibility in the West Bank and Gaza, the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an occupying power (Israel) has a clear responsibility to assist those living under its occupation (the Palestinians). Under Israel's current vaccine scheme, millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, many of whom work in Israeli cities, are being left behind.
Undocumented migrants abandoned in the US. Nebraska's Republican Governor Pete Ricketts recently sparked a firestorm when he said undocumented immigrants would be ineligible for COVID vaccines in his state. Ricketts doubled down even when critics pointed out that 11 percent of Nebraska's meat processing workers, who have been pummeled by COVID-19, are undocumented.
Similar conversations have played out in New York state, home to at least 750,000 undocumented migrants (likely an undercount) who are disproportionately represented in essential jobs. The federal government recently reneged on a requirement mandating that states report the personal details of all vaccine recipients, information that could then be passed on to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. However, after the government flip-flop, it's unclear whether undocumented New Yorkers — who fear arrest and deportation — will now feel safe to show up for the jab.
Not enough vaccines. Leaving behind the most vulnerable populations both within their own countries' borders and in adopted ones, is not only morally questionable, it is bad public health policy as the world strives to get to COVID zero. But there is a very basic constraint here for all the politicians involved: there are fewer vaccines than people, and no elected leader could agree to vaccinate non-citizens before citizens, could they?