NJ Governor Rejects Plan to House Migrants in State

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said that his state could not accept any migrants from New York City because the Biden administration is looking for new places to house them. This includes Garden State locations.

Murphy told News 12: “I can’t imagine a scenario in which we could take in a show in Atlantic City, or anywhere else in the state.”

Murphy responded to a report that the Atlantic City International Airport is one of eleven federally-owned locations New York City could use to relocate migrants who, according to officials, are overrunning the “sanctuary city”.

This week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed that it had received recommendations from an expert team sent by DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas in order to evaluate the Big Apple’s migration operations.

New York City politicians say the city is overwhelmed with the 100,000+ migrants it has seen since last year. They have also called for federal assistance, such as funding, emergency declarations, and faster work authorizations.

DHS has recommended 11 federal sites in New York State and the surrounding areas where migrants may be accommodated. Bloomberg News reported the Atlantic City Airport as one of those locations. The airports include Massena International Airport which is an entry point for U.S. border crossings with Canada.

Murphy, on the other hand, said that such a move would be a mistake.

He said: “We’re already seeing people in New Jersey who have likely swelled from New York City, or other places, but we need scale and an enormous amount of federal assistance — resources beyond what we can afford. We must put everything else aside.”

Murphy’s statement shows the difficulties that the Biden administration has in resettling migrants who have flooded into the U.S. by the millions since 2021 when the migration crisis began.

Many people have moved north on their own, or with the help of Texas and other states.

Democrats who are usually allied to the administration have expressed deep criticism of what they perceive as a failure of the federal government to act on what the states claim is a state problem.

Leaders of New York and other Democratic-run States have called for more work authorizations for migrants. They also want federal emergency declarations as well as increased federal funding.

The DHS expert group had made several recommendations to New York City. It also renewed its own call for Congress to pass reforms to what they say is a “broken system”.

DHS announced this week that it will launch a nationwide campaign to assist eligible migrants in obtaining employment authorization.

DHS’s recommendations to NYC include increasing the collection of information at intake centers, improving communication throughout to help migrants move through the system, and a stronger focus on case management, including legal services, and providing more information about work authorization and asylum requests.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams reacted coolly to the recommendations, saying, “We are happy that they engage in these discussions” but implying the recommendations did not get to the core of the problem.

“So each time we open up a new space that’s not a solution,” Adams told reporters that the situation was not sustainable. If you are averaging 10,000 people per month, and the national plan is for New York City to continue finding spaces, then that’s not an answer. If the national plan is to slowly see if New York moves more on the wait list for work authorizations, then that’s not a solution.