Feds giving $105M to help Apple handle flood
New York City will receive about $105 million in fresh federal grant funding to support its handling of the local asylum-seeker surge, the top Democrats in each chamber of Congress said Wednesday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency infusion is comparatively small for the city, which predicts it will have spent more than $4 billion handling the migrant crisis by next June, as asylum seekers spill into New York from Southern states.
Still, the city, which said it was caring for more than 47,000 migrants on Wednesday, seems to need all the help it can get. City officials welcomed the new stream of money.
Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, two Brooklyn Democrats, said in a joint statement that the new federal funding marks a “strong step in the right direction — which better recognizes and rewards New York City’s unique challenge.”
The funds will be drawn from an $800 million migrant support fund overseen by FEMA and secured during federal budget negotiations last year. New York City is now on track to score about $143 million of the pot that has been allocated through the fund so far.
Roughly $73 million has yet to be disbursed, said Angelo Roefaro, a spokesman for Schumer.
Schumer, the Senate majority leader, and Jeffries, the House minority leader, said in their statement that the roughly $105 million announced Wednesday would help “defray a critical portion of the city’s asylee-related costs.”
“New York City continues to be disproportionately challenged by an influx of asylum seekers and it will take an all-hands-on-deck, every-level-of-government approach to solve, including getting more funds and establishing quicker administrative pathways to work authorization,” they said.
Mayor Adams, who has lobbied hard for support from the state and federal government, thanked Schumer and Jeffries for their work on the fund but underscored the scale of the costs the city has incurred during the migrant influx, which began last spring.
Gov. Hochul committed $1 billion in the state budget to help the city support the migrants, many of whom fled political upheaval and economic turmoil in Venezuela. Adams has pressed Washington to pitch in more, appealing directly and sometimes critically to the White House.
“Thank you to Leaders Schumer and Jeffries for responding to the needs of New York City,” Adams said in a statement, adding that “without the efforts of our congressional leadership, New York City would not have received additional federal funding.”
Anne Williams-Isom, Adams’ deputy mayor for health and human services, said in a news conference that City Hall was “so thankful” for the funds, but added that the city officials are “going to continue to need support.”
The city has already spent more than $1.2 billion to support the migrants, according to Adams’ office.
In the last week alone, the city’s shelter system has welcomed more than 2,100 asylum seekers, bringing the total since last year to more than 74,000, Williams-Isom said.
Adams, who has found himself in a legal battle with some upstate officials who have sought to stop his bids to bus migrants to their communities, has floated a range of places to house the migrants, including Gracie Mansion.
The rush of asylum seekers is now straining municipalities across the country.
“There is more work ahead between both Houses of Congress that requires cooperation from and partnership with the GOP to produce the resources and policies our localities and state need to deal with this national issue,” Schumer and Jeffries said in their statement.