The City Continues to Struggle With Migrants

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. First of all, on that BBC story they were just airing about Rupert Murdoch stepping down as Fox News CEO, I mean, News Corp CEO, can you believe Lachlan got it? I was sure it was going to be Kendall or Shiv, not Roman. No way, but Lachlan? Anyway. We'll begin today for real with potentially big news on the asylum-seeker situation in New York and around the country.

The Biden administration has announced that it will offer temporary protected status, which comes with the authorization to work in this country legally, for close to half a million Venezuelans in the US as long as you were here before July 31st. This is just the kind of thing that Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul had been asking for for New York. While it doesn't solve the whole issue of paying for asylum seekers' resettlement by any means, the New York Immigration Coalition is quoted saying it will apply to about 60,000 Venezuelans in New York.

That would be about half of all the recent arrivals in the city who can now at least try to support themselves. We'll talk about that and other related issues with Mayor Adams' chief point person on the asylum seekers now. That's Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom. She has also been chair of child welfare studies at the Fordham Graduate School of Social Services and she was the CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone. Deputy Mayor, thanks for coming on today. Welcome back to WNYC.

Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom: Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you for having me and good to see you again.

Brian Lehrer: Can you first give us your reaction to the announcement from the Biden administration? What do you think it will mean for Venezuelans in New York and for the financial burden on the city?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Let me take a step back. I was checking my notes and I saw that when I last spoke to you was in December. At that time, Brian, a little over 28,000 asylum seekers had gone through our system, and over 20,000 we were caring for. I just can't believe that here I am nine months later, and with over 116,000 asylum seekers that have arrived, and about 60,000 that are still in our care. Time is so important here and we see how important it is to make these decisions quickly.

My reaction is that I am thankful that after months and months of a coalition led by Mayor Adams asking for this, spearheading this relief, and calling for let them work, I am so grateful that President Biden has heard that coalition's cry and is now allowing Venezuelans, who are the majority, about 41% of the folks that we see in our homelessness system and HERRC system are from Venezuela. We know that this is a very encouraging step forward.

To your point, I think that New Yorkers will be relieved as we try to see if we can move asylum seekers out quicker through different strategies, including this one by connecting them to work, and, hopefully, as you said, relieve some of this financial strain that we have right here. You know that, right now, the city has opened over 200 emergency shelters and is on track to spend nearly $5 billion. We are hoping that this helps to relieve some of the strain, but we certainly do need more support.

Brian Lehrer: Can you talk about those numbers in a little more detail? You started to get at it, but that number I cited from the New York Immigration Coalition that this will affect 60,000 Venezuelans in New York approximately, do you think that's about right?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I think the number that they may be referring to are the amount of Venezuelans that are in all of New York City. The ones that we're talking about is there's about 60,000 that are in our care. Based on our analysis, we think that about 15,000 of them will be eligible for work authorization. We will be working with them immediately to make sure that they have the paperwork that they need so that they can be connected to work. I think that's the difference in the two numbers that you will hear, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: How many of the Venezuelans in New York right now do you think are children, that is of those who've come in the last year and a half?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: That's a great question. I don't know that I have that exact number. I know that we have a little over 20,000 school-aged children that are in our school system right now. Since about 2/3 of the population in our shelters are families with children, I would say that probably 41% of those households probably are made up of children. I can get you that exact number. I think this is going to have a big effect and it also will help us at the front door, right?

Now, we'll be able to say if you're from Venezuela right at the very beginning, this is what we're going to do for you. This is going to be the time that you're going to be with us. We're going to work really closely with you to do intensive case management right up front and then to see where we can get people resettled. I'm also really excited because the governor and the state has worked with us on this resettlement program that we've talked about. One of the restrictions of that and one of the reasons I think it's been going kind of slowly and we've only had two families that have been resettled so far is because there was a requirement that they had to work.

I was so encouraged to hear the governor last night say that now that people could work, I think that that's going to be more of a pathway then to move into this resettlement program, especially the families with children who we think one of the most vulnerable parts of the population here. As soon as we would be able to get them settled and moving to other parts of the state or, frankly, other parts of the country where there's work, we think that that can be a really encouraging pathway forward.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, any Venezuelans recently arrived or not listening right now and want to weigh in on this or who else has a question about asylum-seeker policy for New York City Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom, 212-433-WNYC. Call us or text us at 212-433-9692. Deputy Mayor, does the city have these tens of thousands of job openings and do those jobs pay enough to let those people find housing in this expensive city?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I think that's an interesting question. You of all people, Brian, know that one of the tricky parts of this humanitarian crisis is that New York City is in the middle of a housing crisis right now too, so it's difficult for many people. We know that we have many New Yorkers that are struggling to get connected to benefits and to make a way in a city that is very expensive.

I might say, that's one of the reasons why I know sometimes migrants come to New York City and think it's going to be easy and I can get a job here and I'm going to be able to have a life. This makes it a little easier for us to encourage migrants not to even come to the front door of New York City but to go to other places where we know the cost of living is a little cheaper and where we know that there are jobs, whether it's in the food industry, whether it's in taxi industry, all of the places where we know that there are tens of thousands of jobs.

I know that the state has also talked about 5,000 jobs that they have in agriculture that will be available as soon as that season starts up again. I think you're asking a really great question that whether or not we're going to have enough jobs here. I know we do have a lot of jobs here in New York City and that there's about 10,000 in a database that we've talked about with our brothers and sisters in the food industry, but I also know that getting people work authorization and connected to work gives them a lot more flexibility to resettle to other parts of the state and other parts of the country.

Brian Lehrer: I'm trying to get at the numbers that you would project based on this Biden declaration and I realize it's brand new, but how many fewer migrants you would project will be living in the city shelters or, otherwise, on the city's dime, let's say, six months from now, and how that would affect the mayor's projections of a $5 billion deficit leading to a $12 billion deficit over the next year or a couple of years?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: That's what my team and I will be working on over the next couple of days and weeks, Brian, because we've seen those projections. Every day, we get up and we look to see how many asylum seekers have come the previous week. Just last week, I believe there were over 2,900 new asylum seekers that entered into our care. Now, that's the tricky part, right? We are going to have these exit strategies that we think we're doing a great job on a 60-day time limit, getting people resettled.

If we keep having a front door that has 2,900 people coming in, it makes it quite difficult to make the projection about how the exit strategies will work. That's why it's going to be so important for us to work with our brothers and sisters in the state and at Legal Aid Society on this question of right to shelter and what people understand about it in terms of their draw to come to New York City and what they think that that's going to require. What we're going to do is we're going to really continue to keep a close eye on the census.

We're going to give out all of the 60-day notices that we can to every new person that comes in. We're going to do intensive case management so that we can make sure that we're doing those exits. We're going to continue to need the support of the state in terms of any additional sites that we might need. We're so happy that we got Floyd Bennett Field and that the governor has agreed to pay for that. We are going to continue to need waivers in terms of there's any other flexibility that we need to really expedite the exits and to get people settled.

We're going to need the federal government to continue to think about TPS for other populations and other ways that if we are going to have the policy that we have at the borders, we've got to have some good sense policies so that cities can thrive. People are coming here. We're getting the financial support, the resources, and then the flexibility to resettle people in the way that we need to.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call from David in Chelsea, who I think wants to name some sectors of the economy, where there might be available jobs that would be matches for some of the people who are now getting work authorization. David, you're on WNYC with the Deputy Mayor. Hello.

David: Oh, thanks, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I love your show and I love all your topics that you touch on.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much.

David: I just want to say congratulations to the mayor and the governor. It's wonderful. I am really, really happy for this law being passed and to move forward for all the Venezuelans and all the people that really need jobs and a path forward and that's so wonderful. To cut to the chase, my suggestion was that there's so much empty jobs and drops and health care and assisted living in the VA hospitals. I really believe that there's a lot of openings and there's a lot of jobs and there's a lot of opportunity for people with papers, the people with papers to apply for those kind of jobs because they're in desperate need for all nationalities and all people from around the world. In New York City and New York State and in tri-state areas.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you very much. Deputy Mayor?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: David, you make such an excellent point. We've been working closely with our business partners here in New York City, and they've just been waiting for this moment to be able to have work authorization so that we can then connect people. We can do training programs. You say there's health care. I think about daycare and childcare for many of the moms that really want to work, right?

I think this idea of making sure that we have work authorization for not just the Venezuelans but for the other folks that are coming here is going to be so important because this is the pathway forward, right? That's what the American dream is about. It's not about staying in a shelter. I say to people all the time, nobody wants to raise their kids in a hotel room, right? Nobody wants to live in a tent in Randall's Island.

We don't want that as New Yorkers. We don't think that's good for migrants. We are really excited to be able to partner and to continue to partner with all of the great businesspeople and small business owners because I think that you're exactly right in this post-COVID world. We know that there's a lot of jobs that are available here in New York City and upstate and throughout the United States.

Brian Lehrer: You've mentioned several times now that you hope President Biden extends this same protection to migrants coming in large numbers from other countries in our hemisphere, not just Venezuela. Do you understand why he designated only Venezuelans for TPS right now, Temporary Protected Status, and if he might apply it to people from some of the other major sending countries?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Brian, you know me better than to try to put myself in someone else's mind or say what I think somebody thinks. All I can say is someone asked me yesterday on a panel whether or not this problem was unsolvable. What I said was that the reason that I think the mist has been clear in his focus and his leadership has been really on point here is because there are solutions that are available. We as a city don't have all of the tools in our toolbox, right?

We can't take a national policy and make a national policy. The White House could. For a long time, even though some people might've said, "Oh, it's only Congress," we knew that with solid leadership that there are decisions that are made that can help us to see a path forward. We know that the governor has tools in her toolbox that she can use. I think if all three of us are showing leadership in the way that we can, I do think that there is a path forward for us for this moment, Brian.

I think this is going to be what we're going to see moving forward as we see turmoil in many different parts of the globe right now. We talk about climate change and we talk about the problems that we see in other countries. Now, we can't be the solution to everything, but if our policy is going to be that we're going to let people through the border, we have to be smart about what that looks like and come up with strategies that work.

Brian Lehrer: Hattie in Hackensack, you're on WNYC with Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom. Hi, Hattie.

Hattie: Yes, sir. Yes, Brian Lehrer, I think you're a treasure. Get this out of the way. [laughs] Let me get to a quiet place. I apologize. I'm in the rice zone.

Brian Lehrer: That's all right. We can hear you fine.

Hattie: Okay, thank you. Brian, what it is, these are not refugees. These are an absolute economic immigrants. They managed to make babies on their way in their caravans. They have six months old attached to their breast and they're begging here. This is not a sustainable situation. All they do is they call other people to come over. It's an ongoing situation.

Brian Lehrer: Well, Hattie--

Hattie: Let's just stop it.

Brian Lehrer: Well, let's just stop it. Well, first of all, I don't know what you're getting at by referencing people having babies as if that's some kind of mark against them. If I can pull a serious point out of Hattie's call, Deputy Mayor, a lot of people look at these many, many folks who've been coming in the last year and a half or so and saying, "Well, they're not really asylum seekers in the way that we thought of people coming from other countries at other times, whatever, who are actually in fear of political retribution if they stay in their countries.

They are economic migrants. They're like other migrants. They're jumping the line, yes. To be more generous to them than I think the caller was, they want to build a new and better life in the United States, but that's different than political asylum or refugees, which many of them are not qualifying for once they go through the system. What's your response to that? What's your perception of who they are and how people should think of them en masse?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I don't even think I want to go there in terms of what's my perception of them. What I think I want to focus on is that they are coming through the border and being designated by the border patrol as asylum seekers. I have to, as a deputy mayor for health and human services for New York City, take them as they come. We don't control our borders in New York City.

We need the tools and the strategies to be able to help people as best as we can. I think there's no one that says that New York City has not done a herculean effort with the over 100,000 people that have come to New York City. I think, right now, the way and the amount of services and the way that we've been running it is not sustainable. The mayor said that back in April or when the beginning part of this.

We said we are going to do our part. People can see a model for how we can help asylum seekers and how we can connect them to the things that they need. There is no way that one municipality can deal with this issue on their own. All of us, as the mayor said, came from somewhere to New York City, but I think all of us were able to work and get connected to some type of a means by which to take care of themselves.

I think that almost all New Yorkers that I speak to, even the ones that are frustrated, listen, I understand people's frustration. I'm frustrated too. I can't just throw up my hands and be frustrated though. I have to come up with solutions being led by a mayor who's been really clear with us about what his vision is to the challenges to deal with the folks. I'm so proud that no families and children have slept on the street.

That is his vision. That is what he's told us to do. We've set up our legal clinic. That is what his vision was. We are working on getting our faith-based program together so that we can join with more nonprofits and synagogues and mosques. That was the mayor's vision about what's possible. Back in April when he called for TPS, that was him saying, "Listen, we have much that New York City can do, but we can't let them work." We are happy that, now, the President has seen the cries.

I want to give a shout-out to our federal delegation. Hakeem Jeffries and Congressman Meeks, all of them, many, many of them, came to the Roosevelt. They saw what we were doing and they were proud of the work that we did. I want to also say, Senator Gillibrand and Schumer, they were proud. Now, I think we're like, "We're proud." We want to connect people to work and we want to really have others step up and do more because people can't keep coming to New York City at 2,900 a week. It's still not sustainable.

Brian Lehrer: Well, let me ask you a political question that pertains to our congressional delegation because that last caller ended with, "This has to stop." I think when we hear Democrats like Mayor Adams, it's, "New York is a city of immigrants, but federal government, state government, we need your help because the city can't do this on its own."

When we hear Republicans, it's more like, "Biden has to close the border and stop the flow." This is being seen as a potential defining issue in next year's congressional swing districts in New York, which could matter a lot to who winds up controlling Congress next time. I wonder if the message from your administration, from the Adams administration, is also to do a better job sealing the border, or is that not part of what you're asking for?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I think it's healthy for Democrats and our parties to have some disagreements and to try to come up with solutions. I think we all agree and know that none of the Republicans, whether it was Trump or the Republicans in Congress, can tell us what they think we should do because they just don't have that moral high ground. They can't, right? We've seen what Abbott has done. We've seen the policies that they have done.

We as Democrats, whether it's at the federal level, state level, city level, we may squabble a little bit about what the strategy should be, but we are totally aligned on what we think this country stands for and what it means. People can say they're taking our talking points. They're not taking our policies. They're not approaching it in the way that we have. They're not approaching this with a humanitarian perspective and they never had. They don't get to take that from us and now try to change the talking points. I think Americans can see that and are clear where we need to go as a nation.

Brian Lehrer: Eddie in Astoria, originally from Venezuela. Eddie, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Eddie: Hi. Thank you for having me. I'd like to express my emotion about-- I'm a Broadway musician, so I walk to the theaters and I see all the Venezuelans sitting there. I'm also from Venezuela. You see families just sitting all day on the street. You know they're in distress. I know the situation in Venezuela. It's wonderful to see that, finally, these people can work legally. Arguments that I hear on the radio and people I know, people just don't understand the kind of problems Venezuelans have to go through in Venezuela to a point where they have to leave.

I see that, okay, a work permit is great, but there should be a better understanding and recognition of their situation and even look further towards green cards and things like that like the Cubans had when they're fleeing Cuba. That's how I feel. What's the next step for these people? I'm just incredibly happy though that at least these guys and these families can at least get a job. Hopefully, they can navigate this because it's not easy either.

Brian Lehrer: Eddie, thank you very much. Deputy Mayor--

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I think that--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Oh, can I just respond to that? Because I think-

Brian Lehrer: Please.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: -that's where my heart was last night. I was choked up when I heard the news from the administration because I think it's a solid good step moving forward. We have policies that we can do to help to connect the people that your caller was just talking about, who really have been in such of a despondent state as they have come here looking for work and not being able to get work.

I think, as the mayor says, there's nothing more anti-American than not being able to work. When you see the kids going to school and you see the moms trying to figure out, is there anything that they can do, and we know people are connected to the underground work environment, we don't want that. Being able to translate our values into our policies to seek solutions out of this, I just think that's possible, and so I'm encouraged.

Brian Lehrer: How much of a bureaucracy is there for the Venezuelan asylum seekers covered by this new Biden announcement to actually get their work permits? We know there's such a backlog in other aspects of the asylum and immigration system.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: All again, I can tell you what New York City's going to do. We already really have started an all-hands-on-deck approach to making sure that we're getting to every single asylum seeker in general, not just the Venezuelans. We have the data that tells us where people are, how long they've been here, what countries people are from, and I think that's why this intensive case management, Brian, is going to be so important so that we can at least help people do their asylum application, do their work authorization, and apply for TPS.

That's what we're going to do as a city. We are hoping that the state will give some additional resources to us to help do that too. I know that the federal government is sending 50 people. If it was me, I might send more people and I might find ways to do waivers for applications. We're the United States of America. We can do this and we can take away the bureaucracy that stands in the way of us getting this done in an expedited way.

Brian Lehrer: Here is a clip of Governor Hochul on CNN last night echoing one of Mayor Adams' positions that she also holds about the city's right to shelter law.

Governor Hochul: Never was it envisioned that this would be an unlimited, universal right or obligation on the city to have to house literally the entire world.

Brian Lehrer: My question is, is the city planning to go to court to get the right-to-shelter policy modified because it was not intended for this kind of situation?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Well, Brian, I would say we've already done that. When we went to court in May, we filed a letter, which is procedurally what we had to do to ask the judge to help out-- We wanted to go back into court to talk about whether or not the way that the Callahan consent decree was put in place 40 years ago really should be implied to a humanitarian crisis and, actually, an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.

I think we all think and all New Yorkers and, actually, everybody probably in the nation thinks that that's probably not true. The judge has said that she wanted us to mediate and work together with Legal Aid to see what innovative strategies we could come up with together. As your listeners know, she also then asked the state to say the help they can give us because I think she ultimately is concerned about people being on the street.

We're back in court next week to really say, "I don't think that the right to shelter as is originally written should be applied to this humanitarian crisis in its present form," especially, Brian, with the fact that, I think, over the past maybe six weeks, 3,000 people, 2,900 people, literally to have over 113,000 people that the city is caring for, under no circumstances have we ever had that. I think everybody knows that that's not sustainable.

Brian Lehrer: Here is Rosie, originally from Columbia in Queens. You're on WNYC with Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom. Hello, Rosie.

Rosie: Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Just looking to make three points. One, from a Native American point of view that migration is something that has been happening for thousands of years that, at the beginning of the creation of the country, people were not bringing papers with them. They were just coming here to survive, to look for a better life. Being from South America and knowing that the country and of Venezuela specifically is so rich in natural resources, yet many of these resources were exploited by United States companies and created the poverty that they're running from.

Also, looking at the winter ahead and how these people are not used to that cold, they have never felt such a cold in their lives. It's very difficult times ahead to all the people that are uncomfortable or hating that they're coming here, to remember that climate change is something that is affecting every region on Earth, and that at any point, any of us can become a migrant or leader and that we should deal with them with kindness.

Brian Lehrer: Rosie, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm going to ask a follow-up question--

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Brian, can I--

Brian Lehrer: Well, she's raising the problems that a lot of people will have with a cold when they're from southern climates at the same time that the city is seeking to limit the right to shelter. Is that a contradiction?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I want to just talk and say something about what Rosie said. I know that sometimes we see the images of people who are not being kind. As I talked to my friend, Ruth Messinger, over the weeks, we see tons of people who have set up places and resources for migrants. Here on 40th Street in Harlem, we see tons of families in District 3 in New York City are doing resource places, connecting people to legal clinics. They want to volunteer now to help with work permit. There's a lot of good in New York City. We should be proud of how New York City has dealt with this. We should also say that it's time for us to limit what we're doing. I think we can hold both of those things. Maybe I'm naive. I think we can be proud of what we're doing.

Brian Lehrer: When you're limiting, what happens to the people who get expelled from the shelters after 30 days, 60 days, whatever the policy is, in the winter?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Yes, so I think what we've said is that there's many different steps to the case management. We've got 30 days to get you connected. Now that people have been here so long, there are starting to have networks of people throughout the United States or even here in New York City that they can get connected to. Brian, remember, 113 people have come here, but only 60,000 are in the shelter system. That means that 40,000 people have found something else to do.

I'm making their way out of the shelters because no one wants to live in a shelter. The better that we're able to really use the power of all of our non-profits that are working with communities, our businesses to get them connected to business, we think that there is a path forward. We feel good about giving people re-ticketing and working with them, whether it's an ID, whether it's getting them connected to a training program, so that they can see their way out. We think that is a pathway forward.

Brian Lehrer: I know we're at the end of our time. I want to ask you one other thing about an aspect of this that we've been covering on the show about what the mayor calls a decompression strategy, which I think means the state or the federal government resettling asylum seekers for now in different places so they don't all compress in New York City. Has the administration asked the President or the governor to do that and they won't?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I think the mayor has been really clear and steadfast in his ask. It's always been about a federal declaration. It's been about work authorization. It's been about a decompression strategy. Because we feel as New York City, we can do our own decompression strategy, but it would be so much more powerful and fruitful to have the national government be able to say, "We're going to do the work that we need to connect people and give them the papers that they need, and then allow them to go to other parts of the country that need workers that are in need of populations."

We know a lot of places. The population has decreased. Yes, we think that the federal government can do that. We think that the state government can do it. We certainly as New York City have tried to do it throughout the state and had some blocks and challenges there. Now, I would say, our intensive case management and our time limits is really our form of a decompression strategy. We're hoping that other people use that as an example of what's possible.

Of course, we've asked for reimbursement for the things that we are doing because on the right, financially, we are showing people the models. Financially, we cannot spend $5 billion and then put that against the budget that we have here in New York City, whether it's for our sanitation, it's for our public safety. New York City is really coming back. People say, "We've got to get back." We're back.

We don't want to take any steps backwards. We want to continue to make this a place that we all love. I can see as people are out in the parks and they're enjoying. The holidays are getting ready to come up. Kids are back in school. That's what we see. That's what the mayor's vision is. We think it's possible to deal with this humanitarian crisis and to make sure that New Yorkers have what they need, but we need resources from the state and federal government in order to do that.

Brian Lehrer: Mayor Eric Adams' point person on the asylum seekers coming to the city, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom. We always appreciate when you come on with us. Please keep coming on with us as we keep covering this situation for the benefit of-

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: -those arriving and everybody already here. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Thank you and please keep asking me back up. Please keep coming. Thank you so much.

 

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.