Outside the city, Democrats and Republicans run on outcry over migrants in NYC

As she stands at the border of Queens and Nassau County, where she hopes to unseat a first-term Republican, Laura Gillen wants to talk about the U.S.-Mexico border some 2,000 miles away.

“I want you to hear me loud and clear,” the Democrat says in a political ad that’s been in heavy rotation on Long Island. “You send me to Congress, I will work with anyone from any party to secure our southern border, lock up criminals pushing fentanyl and stop the migrant crisis.”

It would have been surprising rhetoric to hear from a Democrat just a few years ago. But the ongoing national debate over immigration policy and New York City’s struggle to provide shelter for tens of thousands of newly arrived migrants has had a dramatic influence on a small handful of key congressional races on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley — including Gillen’s bid to unseat Rep. Anthony D’Esposito in the 4th Congressional District.

New York Republicans have seized on their party’s signature issue, taking any chance they can get to blame their Democratic opponents for lax border policies and local crimes committed by migrants. Democrats have countered in part by going on the offensive — airing ads with tough-on-the-border language, and blaming former President Donald Trump and the GOP for tanking a potential bipartisan compromise earlier this year.

The high-profile messaging war has significant national stakes. Public opinion polls have shown that New York voters view immigration as a serious issue, and the winner of the state’s battleground districts will help determine which party takes control of the House of Representatives next year.

Lawrence Levy, executive dean of Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies, said the GOP is “trying to move the U.S.-Mexico border up to the Queens-Nassau County line.”

“They want people to feel that folks are streaming across from Mexico via New York City, and that it's all the fault of every Democrat who has ever appeared in the paper or on television in the metro area,” he said.

More than 220,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022, according to City Hall. Of those, 59,400 remain in the city’s care, with 1,100 housed in 11 hotels outside the five boroughs — including in Westchester, Orange, Dutchess, Erie and Albany counties.

Immigration policy and border security have played at least some role in each of New York’s battleground districts. But they have loomed particularly large in two rematches from the 2022 midterms: D’Esposito’s battle against Gillen, the former Hempstead town supervisor; and first-term GOP Rep. Marc Molinaro’s race against Democratic attorney Josh Riley.

In a News 12 Long Island debate last week, D’Esposito proactively brought up Gillen’s ad — accusing her of changing her tune from their race two years ago.

“Two years ago I said that one of the most important things facing the American people was securing our southern border,” he said. “My opponent told me that I was fearmongering.”

Gillen quickly punched back, questioning why D’Esposito didn’t support a bipartisan bill on Capitol Hill. The bill, which never made it to the House of Representatives after Trump pushed to kill it, would’ve restricted the asylum process, which many migrants have used to establish a legal, if temporary, foothold in the United States.

“We need comprehensive immigration reform to create a legal pathway to citizenship, to fix the broken asylum system, and to bring the resources we need to secure our border,” Gillen said in the debate. “And that will be a priority on day one for me.”

The immigration debate has gone similarly in New York’s 19th District.

Molinaro has seized on Riley’s work as an attorney fighting against some of Trump’s border policies, including the former president’s ban on accepting refugees from mostly Muslim countries and his push to eliminate deportation protections for immigrants who arrived in the country as children.

“This guy works for a Washington law firm that wanders the halls of Congress, lobbying, advocating and pressuring for policy,” Molinaro said in an interview with Gothamist. “And his policy pressure was to dismantle Trump border security. It’s just as simple as that.”

Molinaro and his supporters have aired anti-Riley ads highlighting cases in which migrants have been arrested within the district. Those include a man accused of being a Peruvian gang leader who is wanted for 23 murders in his home country and who was arrested near Binghamton in August after illegally entering the United States through Texas, according to the Associated Press.

Riley has pushed back with an ad of his own, where he chats with people in a bar as an all-caps message blares on the screen: “Josh Riley opposed President Biden on the border.”

Like Gillen, Riley has repeatedly criticized his opponent for declining to support the bipartisan immigration bill. He told Gothamist he supports hiring more border agents and judges to process asylum claims, as well as erecting “physical barriers” at parts of the southern border. He said “politicians are screwing around and pointing fingers at each other” when it comes to immigration policy.

“That's true, I believe, with the Biden-Harris administration,” he said. “They didn't take the problem seriously soon enough. And it's certainly the case with my opponent, who rejected a bipartisan deal.”

Both Molinaro and D’Esposito emphasize that the bipartisan compromise bill never made it out of the Senate. But both said it didn’t go far enough; they prefer the House GOP-passed Secure the Border Act, which Democrats have criticized as extreme and inhumane.

The Democrats’ tough border talk is straight out of the playbook of Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi, according to Levy, from Hofstra.

Suozzi, a Democrat, won a hard-fought special election earlier this year to replace ousted Republican Rep. George Santos, in part by taking on the issue of immigration head-on.

But it’s not a perfect comparison. Suozzi had enormous name recognition within his Queens and Nassau-based district, a version of which he represented before he made an ill-fated run for governor in 2022.

The Democratic candidates’ rhetoric, meanwhile, has caused a dilemma for pro-immigrant organizations that have traditionally been aligned with the party.

Make the Road Action, a progressive-leaning organization that advocates for immigrants, hasn’t formally endorsed any of New York’s congressional candidates in battleground races. But the group has been actively knocking on doors in a couple districts, including D’Esposito’s, warning of what it sees as the dangers of a Republican presidential administration and Congress.

When asked about the Democratic candidates’ tough talk on the border, Make the Road Action Executive Director Theo Oshiro said elections “are not about picking a savior.”

“We need to put ourselves in the right position to actually be able to have elected officials that we can move on things like immigration,” he said. “And really, what we need to avoid is — and I think this is not an exaggeration — the really existential threat to the immigrant community under a Republican administration.”

Election Day is Nov. 5. Early voting in New York begins on Saturday.