Former President Bill Clinton admitted a change was needed to New York's "right to shelter" law after the Biden administration's border policies sent more than 100,000 immigrants to New York City.
Clinton joined Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) and New York City Mayor Eric Adams in calling for a modification to the city's law, which they claim was meant for housing the city's homeless, not the migrants who entered the country illegally.
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"It's broken. We need to fix it. … It doesn't make any sense," Clinton told host John Catsimatidis on 77 WABC radio's Cats Roundtable show. "They come here, and we're supposed to shelter people who can't get work permits for six months. We need to change that. They ought to work. They need to begin working, paying taxes, and paying their way. Most of these people have no interest in being on welfare."
Clinton said the adjustment should be a relaxation of the pressure on the city to house immigrants who are waiting for work permits, which can take up to six months to get approved.
The former president acknowledged President Joe Biden's recent effort to allow Venezuelan immigrants to apply for "temporary protective status" and said he believed Venezuelans could be approved for asylum, given the status of their home country.
"We have always had a blanket offer of entry into America for people who have a reasonable fear for the lives and safety of their families and themselves," Clinton said. "A lot of the Venezuelans can easily make that case. … Because there's no question that the whole country has been consumed by the collapse of effective security and government in Nicolás Maduro's administration."
Clinton argued immigration is a good thing for the United States because of the country's declining birth rate and a labor shortage in certain areas of the country but said Democrats are losing when it comes to immigration because of the chaos on the southern border.
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"The [U.S. immigration] system is built to handle about 400,000 … We should build more housing just over the Rio Grande, and Mexico, I think, would support that," Clinton said. "Keep people there, and let them in as quickly as possible if they are going someplace where we know they can get a job and they'll be welcome. Chaos has been very beneficial for the Republicans."
New York City has seen more than 110,000 immigrants enter the city since April 2022, and the influx has not slowed.