Who would have thought that, for the very low price of a bus ticket, you could make your political opponents make the same arguments against uncontrolled illegal immigration that you have been making for years? Apparently, the Republican governors of Texas and Florida, among others, thought so – although even they probably could not have imagined the spectacular political success of their respective migrant relocation programs.
“We’ve reached our limit,” said a spokesman for New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday night. The city was forced to adopt emergency measures, including requisitioning gyms to house the contingent of migrants seeking asylum in the Big Apple. But with more than 61,000 migrants arriving in the city last year, New York has exhausted its contingency plans. The mayor’s office has revealed that it will suspend its policy of granting “right to shelter” to migrants who cross the southern border of the United States.
Officially, the rationale for New York City’s reluctant decision to temporarily abandon its sanctuary city policies is the expiration of pandemic border restrictions contained in Title 42. But, as the New York Times conceded, the relatively small contingent of migrants moved to the city through programs run by Republican governors such as Ron DeSantis (Florida) and Greg Abbott (Texas), is a top concern for city politicians. And it’s not just New York City that is feeling the pressure.
On Tuesday, outgoing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot declared a state of emergency amid an influx of thousands of migrants that has overwhelmed the city’s social services. “We have reached a breaking point in our response to this humanitarian crisis,” said Lightfoot. According to reports, migrants are being forced to sleep on the floor of police stations and have limited access to showers and toilet facilities. Chicago was also forced to rethink its sanctuary city policies in response to the end of Title 42, but Lightfoot herself confessed that the city’s “tipping point” was accelerated by the migrant transit program.
The US capital, Washington, has already spent $10 million earmarked to help its immigrant population, and the hotels that Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration has designated to house immigrants are full. City Hall is now seeking reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to maintain support for migrants. Last year, in response to pressure the border states put on the nation’s capital, the city eased its sanctuary city policies, a move the Georgetown Voice called “anti-immigrant.”
Both Lightfoot and Adams were critical of border state governors. “This behavior is morally reprehensible and devoid of any concern for the well-being of asylum seekers,” Adams said in a statement, “and it is also impossible to ignore the fact that Abbott is now targeting five cities run by black mayors. ” Lightfoot also adopted an accusatory tone. “We’re not just ‘storing’ people,” he insisted. “We are not going to treat them the way we saw Governor Abbott do, without any regard for their humanity.” But the transfer programs have done little to increase the migrant populations of either city. And if this increase is enough to create major problems for these “sanctuary cities”, imagine what border communities are facing.
This isn’t the first time these Democratic mayors have used essentially the same arguments as frontier Republicans.
“This situation at the border is not a new challenge,” admitted Lightfoot in September 2022, after a group of Republican governors refuted Vice President Kamala Harris’ preposterous claim that “the border is safe.” It is, however, “a new challenge for us,” added Lightfoot. The governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, summoned the National Guard to face the small migratory pressure that forced the state to “fight without need”. As a stopgap measure, Lightfoot put about 150 migrants on buses and routed them from his “sanctuary” city to the far reaches of the suburbs.
It’s the same story in Washington, where one councilor complained that Republican governors “turned us into a frontier town.” Eric Adams was also distressed by the situation. “The city’s past practices, which never anticipated that thousands of people could be transported to New York, must be reassessed,” he admitted last year. Those Democratic city officials tried every which way to turn the matter into a political issue, accusing Republicans of being insensitive and opportunistic, but it didn’t work.
Shortly thereafter, Abbott and DeSantis received the support of Democratic Colorado Governor Jared Polis. “We refuse to keep people [no estado] against their will if they wish to travel elsewhere,” Polis said in a statement. Although the state’s relocation program ended, its decision to implement it has undermined the Democratic effort to politicize the issue.
The underlying conditions that fuel this interstate dispute — the border crisis — are only getting worse. On Wednesday, Border Patrol agents spotted more than 10,000 illegal migrants, the third consecutive day that this mark was exceeded. And with these conditions worsening, migrant transport programs must intensify. “Until [o presidente Joe] Biden protects the border to stop the mass migration flow, Texas will continue with this necessary program”, promised Abbott at the beginning of the month. Earlier this year, the Florida Legislature passed and Governor DeSantis signed a bill to fund and expand the state’s migrant relocation program. Florida’s Division of Emergency Management confirmed this week that the state “selected multiple vendors based on their capabilities to effect the program.”
The difficulties faced by migrants crossing US borders and by the municipalities charged with keeping them safe, fed and safe are not evenly distributed. The shuttle program made the US border crisis a much more visible nightmare by exposing it to politicians and the press across the country. By criticizing the methods of the border states, Democratic politicians in America’s most permissive counties are inadvertently bolstering the arguments against lax immigration policies. If this becomes a catalyst for policy change, it will make a greater contribution to securing America’s borders and the migrants already within them than any “sanctuary city” policy has managed to make.
*Noah Rothman is a senior writer for National Review.
© 2023 National Review. Published with permission. Original in English.
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