White House will help some NYC migrants get work permits, but offers no sweeping action

In a rare briefing with New York City reporters on Tuesday, the White House sought to counter criticisms that President Joe Biden isn’t doing enough to respond to tens of thousands of migrants that have arrived in the five boroughs over the last year, straining safety net systems that city officials said could cost billions of dollars.

The briefing with senior Biden administration officials comes just days after Mayor Eric Adams escalated his demands for help, threatening to make budget cuts as high as 15% if the state and federal government fail to come up with more money and solutions to the ongoing crisis. Adams’ threats come shortly after he ignited a storm of controversy for saying he saw no end to a migrant crisis that “will destroy New York City.”

In addition to proposing dramatic budget cuts, Adams said shelters are becoming so crowded that the city could soon be forced to move families with children into congregate shelters, an arrangement that would violate the city’s long-standing right-to-shelter rules and raise safety concerns.

While White House officials said they were in constant contact with Gov. Kathy Hochul, they made no mention of Adams or his remarks during Tuesday’s roughly 45-minute Zoom call with reporters.

Two senior Biden administration officials, who spoke on the condition that their names not be used, sought to assure the public that the White House was taking the crisis seriously, describing the influx of migrants as akin to the movement of people during World War II and promising to work in concert with Albany and City Hall on the issue.

They outlined a public awareness campaign intended to urge migrants to apply for asylum as well as work permits. As part of that effort, the administration plans to send 50 staffers to help the city with the asylum and work permit process.

The federal officials said they were also on the cusp of finalizing a deal to house migrants in southeast Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field, which is managed by the National Park Service. Hochul first made the request to use the former naval air station in May and hinted that the city was close to a resolution to lease the space from the federal government late last month.

On the issue of work permits, officials said the White House's ongoing outreach targets the hundreds of thousands of migrants who were admitted under special programs. Such individuals are already eligible to work legally, but only a small proportion have applied for work permits, according to the senior officials.

At the same time, they admitted they did not know how many migrants in the city — who number over 100,000, according to City Hall — fall under such a category. They also did not address the issue of application fees, which city officials said cost more than $400. They have also asked the federal government to waive them.

At a separate press conference on Tuesday, Hochul said the state has had difficulty keeping up with the status of new arrivals.

“We have not had the data to track these individuals,” Hochul told reporters. “And this is a problem. We've asked the city — we asked the city months ago, back in the winter months — for knowledge as to the status of individuals.”

Otherwise, federal law mandates that most migrants must wait six months after they file for asylum before they can apply for a work permit.

The prolonged waiting period has been a source of contention for Adams, who argued that it prevents migrants from achieving financial independence and forces them to live in emergency shelters that the city is legally required to provide for them.

To date, the city has received around $140 million in federal aid. Administration officials told reporters they had requested additional funding from Congress, but the chances of the city receiving significant sums of additional money are slim under a Republican-controlled House.

In a statement, the mayor’s office said it was "encouraged" by the White House's remarks that the parties were in the crisis together.

But the mayor's office also urged the Biden administration to intervene further, including by declaring a national state of emergency, which would unlock more funding, and employing a so-called "decompression strategy" that would redistribute migrants crossing the border to other places across the country.

"We have spent more than $2 billion to date and expect to spend $5 billion this fiscal year alone without substantial aid from our state and federal partners," said Kayla Mamelak, a spokesperson for the mayor. "While we are exceptionally proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish, we cannot continue to do this alone and without the federal government taking a leading role."

Political pressure from other corners of the city is building against the White House. In recent weeks, other Democrats and prominent New Yorkers have joined Adams in demanding more federal aid and intervention.

In a New York Times op-ed published on Sunday, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg sharply criticized the Biden administration, saying that it had “failed to address the steep price many cities are paying for a system they didn’t create and borders the cities don’t control.”

The mayor’s allies, including some state lawmakers, staged a rally outside of City Hall on Tuesday afternoon where they defended the mayor’s recent comments.

Biden administration officials notably did not address Hochul’s request for extending temporary protected status — a humanitarian designation — to Venezuela, where many of New York City's migrants fled from due to financial and political turmoil. The president can extend that temporary protected status without approval from Congress — unlike the law surrounding the six-month waiting period.

From the governor’s offices in Manhattan, Hochul said she was eager to work with state lawmakers on migrant-related legislation as she pushes for work authorizations for newcomers.

But the governor did not commit to supporting any of the existing bills in response to the migrant crisis.

Hochul said she would be meeting with legislative leaders later that afternoon to discuss “language” she and her attorneys were considering regarding migrant work authorizations.

The governor emphasized that the talks did not mean that lawmakers would be called back for a special session, and did not rule out the possibility of calling them in before the legislative session's official start in January.

“That decision has not been made,” Hochul told reporters. “I was asked about it before and I said we are entertaining all of our options and we always will.”

“But I have language I want to talk to the leaders about, what that would look like and the timing — whether it's now or in session, which can also happen,” she continued.

If the state were to come up with its own solution, Hochul said, “this would be unprecedented.”

Spokespeople for state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie did not immediately return requests for comment.

This story has been updated to remove an unattributed quote from a White House official.