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00:00 We have this international crisis that really requires federal intervention that local government is being asked to subsidize.
00:06 Local government is not designed or built to handle such a crisis.
00:10 Definitely both a humanitarian crisis for the migrants that are arriving and it is creating a fiscal crisis for the city.
00:16 I don't see an end to this. This issue will destroy New York City.
00:22 The present migrant crisis is quite unprecedented both in scale, in the diversity of the nationalities that are coming to the border,
00:32 and the impact it's having not only on the border states but in the states and cities inside the country.
00:38 I think it's at this point politically unsustainable for the Biden administration to maintain this unlimited flow
00:46 into what's essentially a welfare state network of cities like New York and Denver and Chicago.
00:52 So how long can cities withstand the recent surge of migrants? And what do they need to end the crisis?
00:59 We have to first acknowledge that there is a crisis.
01:04 Because if you don't acknowledge a crisis, you can't be in a crisis mode. We have to be in a crisis mode.
01:10 And this crisis is expensive. In 2018, New York City spent roughly $258 million to fund its immigration services, adjusted for inflation.
01:20 By fiscal year 2023, the city had spent $1.47 billion servicing those seeking asylum.
01:27 The city of Chicago spent over $194 million on its New Arrivals mission since October 2022.
01:35 Denver is estimated to have spent between $36.3 million to $39.1 million on migrant support services in 2023.
01:44 The three biggest items for expenses for New Arrivals is housing, education and health care.
01:51 And they're all three high-ticket items.
01:54 The idea that we could have a generous system of welfare benefits from health to education and so on,
02:00 and allow the entire world to access those benefits is just mathematically impossible.
02:05 So we're starting to see the math not adding up in state after state.
02:10 The sheer volume of newly arrived migrants is a major reason behind the city's struggles.
02:16 In fiscal year 2022, just over 817,000 new cases were filed in immigration courts across the U.S.
02:24 That number exploded to nearly 1.5 million new cases the following fiscal year.
02:29 The particular background of current migrants also plays a role.
02:33 The secret sauce of migration has worked in the past is that people would come,
02:38 and they would not depend on the city and state for settling them.
02:43 They would depend on their social network.
02:46 It seems in this case, many of the people coming in are coming where there are no such inbuilt connections.
02:53 Venezuelans have, which is one of the largest source of nationality of the new migrants.
02:59 It's particularly true that they don't have inbuilt connections.
03:03 They're not, Venezuelan communities are longstanding.
03:07 So they therefore, in the absence of private source of comfort for them,
03:12 then they become dependent on the states and the cities.
03:16 And the states and the cities have limited resources.
03:19 Although immigration has primarily been an area of federal oversight,
03:23 experts say there just isn't enough federal funding for cities to work with.
03:27 The current level of federal funding provided to state and local governments
03:32 is a drop in the bucket compared to the need.
03:34 Congress has provided a very small amount of money of $800 million for FEMA program
03:41 for the entire country for last fiscal year to provide assistance to cities in aiding these newcomers.
03:47 But cities say this isn't enough.
03:50 For instance, the $145 million allocated to New York City
03:54 is less than 10% of what the city spent on migrant services in fiscal year 2023.
03:59 This is a whole spectrum of services needed for people who are new to a place,
04:05 new to a country, new to a city.
04:07 Everything from finding warm clothes for them, to finding jobs for them, to finding shelter for them.
04:14 These are complicated issues to manage.
04:16 So the city, the state, and the federal government, frankly, was not prepared for it.
04:21 Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants
04:27 who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington, D.C.
04:32 We are sending them to the United States Capitol, where the Biden administration
04:35 will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people
04:38 that they are allowing to come across our border.
04:40 So the historians will probably record the current migrant crisis as a chapter of busing migrants.
04:48 This kind of coordinated, dramatic busing of asylum seekers from the border
04:55 to the cities inside the countries is completely unprecedented.
04:59 Since the first bus of migrants to Washington, D.C.,
05:02 Texas reported it has transported over 100,000 migrants to cities such as New York City,
05:07 Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, and Los Angeles.
05:12 In 2023, illegal immigration is estimated to have cost Texas taxpayers $13.4 billion.
05:19 According to the Texas Newsroom, the state spent over $148 million busing migrants to sanctuary cities.
05:26 As of January 24, 2024, the office of the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott,
05:31 did not respond to CNBC's request for an interview.
05:34 The two motives I think behind it were one, simply necessity that Texas doesn't have the resources
05:41 to cope with 150,000 people a day being released into the state.
05:45 It's a big state. It's a reasonably wealthy state.
05:48 But they just simply don't have the schools, the hospitals, the roads, the housing to cope with that kind of influx.
05:53 The staggering new record, more migrants crossed into the U.S. on Monday than any other day in history.
05:59 The current crisis of forced displacement is a global phenomenon.
06:03 There are more people displaced worldwide than ever before.
06:07 And one out of every five displaced people is in the Americas.
06:11 But there's also pull factors, is that people have come to realize that if they reach the United States border
06:19 and they seek asylum, then they'll be let in.
06:23 And then their hearing will not happen for seven years,
06:27 during which time they are authorized to work in the United States and they won't be deported.
06:33 And that has, I think, become a very important magnet.
06:37 Second of all, it's to make a point that those cities and states like New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco
06:43 that claim that they are sanctuaries where anyone from anywhere in the world has the right to go there and live,
06:49 those cities should put up or shut up.
06:51 In a strategy reminiscent of former President Trump's suggestions for managing undocumented migrants,
06:56 other southern states like Arizona and Florida have also engaged in the practice of flying and busing migrants to sanctuary cities and states.
07:05 Sanctuary cities refer to a community with a policy, written or unwritten,
07:09 that discourages law enforcement from reporting an individual's immigration status unless it involves a serious crime.
07:16 They want more people in their sanctuary cities? Well, we'll give them more people.
07:20 We can give them a lot. We can give them an unlimited supply.
07:23 And let's see if they're so happy. They say we have open arms.
07:26 They're always saying they have open arms. Let's see if they have open arms.
07:29 The actions of southern states have been criticized as a political stunt.
07:33 I think it's politically motivated. I mean, it's certainly not coming out of the goodness of heart or for the concern of the migrants.
07:41 I mean, if the governor of Texas was concerned about migrants, which he alleged he was by busing them,
07:47 then he would have consulted the mayors and the governors of the places he was sending them to.
07:52 And he would have said, look, this is a new national crisis.
07:55 Let's all go together to President Biden and say this is a national crisis where the federal government has to take the lead in providing a solution.
08:08 Instead of doing that, he just made it a political ploy for the cities to feel the pressure.
08:14 It's not just a publicity stunt. He is, yes, sharing the burden with states that have said that they can absorb it.
08:20 But he's also trying to remove people from his state that he simply doesn't have the resources to cope with.
08:27 Critics also point out that the lack of coordination from Texas has made it more difficult for sanctuary cities to deal with the crisis.
08:34 If it happens slowly and organically, it's easier to deal with. When it happens in a spurt,
08:41 and I think that's what happened in the case of the major northeastern cities where in the new chapter of busing, a lot of migrants showed up.
08:49 It was unexpected and unplanned for.
08:52 Well, what warning does Texas get when 300,000 people cross over every month?
08:57 I think it's a bit rich for the mayors of cities up north to say, well, hang on a minute.
09:01 Can you guys just slow things down? Give us some more warning. Let us sort it out.
09:05 I think that's a ploy. I think they should be talking to the White House because the White House has control over the flow.
09:10 Texas doesn't have any control whatsoever.
09:13 As pressure continues, cities like Chicago and New York have begun putting more restrictions on migrant dropoffs to stem the flow.
09:20 In January 2024, Mayor Adams also announced a lawsuit against charter companies hired by Texas to transport migrants into the city.
09:29 But what cities say they need the most right now is federal assistance.
09:33 I think the federal government was late coming to this.
09:36 We should have developed a mechanism for reimbursing impacted states and cities early on.
09:43 Unless we get the reimbursement scheme under control, I think cities will suffer for a long time.
09:51 Even sanctuary cities that said, you know, come one, come all, are now begging the Biden administration to unloose the coffers and get them more federal money.
10:00 Which is why it's become such a big issue in Washington, because you're asking essentially a Congress that passed laws that explicitly ban what the president is doing in terms of catching and releasing people at the border and his parole programs.
10:13 You're asking that same Congress that's watching the laws that it wrote be flouted to pony up $20 billion or more to go to grants for people crossing the border to provide services in many cases that are not provided to American citizens.
10:27 So it's become politically contentious.
10:29 The Biden administration told CNBC that they were unable to accommodate an interview with CNBC.
10:35 But the Department of Homeland Security said that it is coordinating with cities and states across the country to identify ways it can continue to maximize its support for local communities.
10:45 While enforcing the law and returning or removing those without a legal basis to remain in the country.
10:51 Even though the United States is what, 34 trillion in the hole and growing at over a trillion a year of deficit, we do at least print money and we can make more of it.
10:59 Cities and states, on the other hand, are not so blessed.
11:02 Lots of cities like Chicago, New York are getting into some pretty serious debt.
11:06 What tends to happen is there's a snowball effect.
11:08 You know, the city will turn to the state and ask for a bailout and then the state will turn to the federal government and ask for a bailout.
11:15 So the solvency of our big cities and our states is definitely in question.
11:20 For some experts, containing the flow of immigration is vital in solving the current crisis.
11:25 The busing from Texas is a tiny, tiny fraction of the number of people who are going to cities in the rest of the country.
11:33 We have to simply limit the number of asylum seekers who come to the border.
11:38 For others, it's about fixing the immigration system that's long been broken.
11:42 Unless we have a more orderly system with incentives for people to come here in regular, actually accessible pathways in the region,
11:51 we will continue to see irregular migration and we will continue to see people without the durable status that they need to more quickly be able to sustain themselves and also contribute to our economy and our economic growth.
12:03 However, the continued politicization of immigration will only make the issue more difficult to address.
12:09 The more we politicize and weaponize this issue, the less likely it is that we will solve it.
12:16 I'm an immigrant myself. I came here when I was six.
12:19 This country was built by immigration, but it was also built by laws.
12:22 And ultimately, the number of people that come into this country and the terms under which they come is a decision that's made by our elected officials.
12:31 If we allow a veto to the entire world to just bypass our laws and do whatever they want, then we've lost our sovereignty, our national sovereignty, and we've lost the rule of law.
12:40 So I regret that the argument isn't a debate between left and right about what immigration levels are in the interests of the United States as a whole.
12:48 We come up with a compromise where no one's happy.
12:50 Instead, we just stay in our corners and sling mud at each other.
12:54 And meanwhile, the border is wide open and no one's happy.
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