Gov. Kathy Hochul joined Mayor Eric Adams on Monday — for the first time — to beg the Biden administration to expedite work permits for asylum seekers and provide more immigration judges to speed up the process.
The joint force effort marks the first time the governor has publicly backed Adams in calling out the federal government amid the surging asylum seeker crisis that continues to cripple New York City.
“The city is overflowing,” Hochul said of the recent influx of migrants into the Big Apple.
“We need all levels of government to respond to this. We truly, truly do.”
She added: “We need changes to the work authorization policies and to let these individuals not have to wait months, possibly years, without legal status.”
Hizzoner also called on the federal government to accelerate the process that allows asylum seekers to start legally working in the Big Apple after more than 5,800 migrants arrived in the city last week alone.
“We have one message: let them work. That is our clear message that we’re sending. You must expedite work authorization for asylum seekers. Not in the future, but now,” he said a joint press conference in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood.
“In New York City, throughout our state and across the country, we have thousands of unfilled jobs.”
The current process, per federal law, typically requires migrants to file an asylum claim, which is followed by a roughly six-month wait before the working papers are then issued.
A nationwide backlog US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has some migrants waiting up to a decade before they can even get their day in an immigration court for their initial claim.
Adams argued that the longer migrants go without working papers, the more they’re exposed to an “underground market” where they could potentially be abused.
He said some migrants being housed in the city’s 150 emergency sites have said they want to be able to provide for themselves and not rely on the free accommodation provided by the Big Apple.
“Right now we are denying them that opportunity by refusing to let them legally work,” Adams said.
“It has created an underground market where individuals could be exploited, unable to pay into our tax space, working long and difficult and dangerous jobs.”
He added: “They are living in the shadow of the American dream and not out front.”
The mayor also called on Washington to extend the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for migrants from a slew of countries — a move he has been pushing since the fall but has so far fallen on deaf ears. TPS is a federal program that allows migrants whose home countries are considered unsafe the right to live and work in the United States for a temporary, but extendable, period of time.
Meanwhile, Gov. Hochul urged the federal government to help by reassigning immigration judges from elsewhere in the country, including from the US border, to help the Empire State speed up that asylum claim process.
“We don’t have enough judges here in the state of New York so start sending some judges up in the clerical step. Give us the support we need so they can start properly filling out the asylum process,” Hochul said, adding the judges could come from other states who aren’t being overburdened with migrants.
“But, once that’s done under the current rules, [the migrants] then have to wait 180 days in limbo — not able to work legally in the state of New York. That’s not working. That’s not a solution. They’re ready to work and willing to work and are not able to.
“So we’re spending a lot of money doing what we can but we need this help from Washington.”