Migrant debate: Biden administration pushes back on Hochul, Adams

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has pushed back on criticisms Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have raised about the federal response to the migrant crisis.

Mayorkas, in letters sent Sunday, said the federal government has provided the city access to a hangar at Kennedy Airport that is housing about 800 single male migrants and had “identified 11 federal sites across New York State to potentially house migrants.”

“We look forward to hearing from the City and State on the viability of these sites,” Mayorkas wrote in letters viewed by Newsday on Monday. The letters were first reported by Politico.

The letters did not specify the 11 sites, and a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mayorkas’ letters came ahead of a meeting Monday between Department of Homeland Security officials and state and New York City officials where a DHS team recommended how to improve the processing of migrants.

The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement to Newsday, said the recommendations included better “data collection, case management, and increased communication with migrants on work authorizations.”

Mayorkas in his letter said the DHS team surveyed the situation earlier this month and made some two dozen suggestions after identifying “structural and operational issues.”

“The structural issues include governance and organization of the migrant operations, including issues of authority, structure, personnel, and information flow,” wrote Mayorkas. “The operational issues include the subjects of data collection, planning, case management, communications, and other aspects of day-to-day operations.”

Mayorkas said the Department of Interior is still waiting on city and state officials to finalize a lease agreement for the “temporary use of Floyd Bennett Field” in Brooklyn.

After the meeting, spokespeople for Hochul and Adams repeated their call for the federal government to help expedite temporary work permit authorizations for migrants applying for asylum.

Biden administration officials have said changing the current timeline would require an act of Congress to amend federal law, which states asylum applicants must wait 180 days before they can apply for temporary work permits.

Hochul spokesman Avi Small said: “As Gov. Hochul has repeatedly said, this crisis will only abate once the federal government takes action on work authorization that allows migrants to be resettled permanently and we are grateful to the Department of Homeland Security for today’s informative briefing.”

Adams spokeswoman Kayla Mamelak said Monday’s meeting did not address a number of demands Adams has made, including increased funding to address the $1.7 billion the city has spent to house migrants since last spring.

More than 104,400 asylum-seekers have been processed by the city since 2022, with more than 59,400 currently under the city’s care in a network of 206 sites, according to figures provided by Adams’ office.

“Our requests from the federal government remain the same, and quite frankly, unaddressed,” Mamelak wrote. “We continue to call on the Biden administration to take the lead in implementing a decompression strategy at the border, expedite pathways to work authorizations for asylum seekers, to declare a state of emergency facilitating swift allocation of federal funds to address our pressing challenges, and to provide more funding to match the reality of the course on the ground. Today’s conversation also did not address the situation on the ground where thousands of asylum seekers continue to arrive in our city with no end in sight.”

A White House official who asked not to be identified said the administration continues to press for more funding.

The official said some of the migrants may already be eligible for temporary work permits in a shorter, six-week time frame under special authorizations issued to migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under specific U.S. Customs and Border Patrol parole programs.

With Matthew Chayes and Michael Gormley

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.