Top city leaders stand side-by-side to call for migrant assistance
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Elected officials and union leaders called on more help for migrants in Foley Square on Thursday during a rally led by Mayor Eric Adams. Twitter/The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union
By Ryan Schwach
An unlikely coalition joined an impassioned Mayor Eric Adams at a rally in Manhattan on Thursday urging the federal government to let asylum seekers legally work.
Usual critics of the mayor, including Comptroller Brad Lander and Public Advocate Jumaane Willliams, as well as Adams allies, rallied at Foley Square to call for the expediting of work authorization for migrants.
Currently, asylum seekers are required to wait at least six months before they can seek approval to work legally in the U.S., a wait that Adams said is putting unnecessary strain on the city’s pocketbook and preventing able new arrivals from providing for themselves and contributing to the city’s economy.
“It's just common sense,” Adam said. “Thousands of jobs are available to be filled to provide the services we need in the city, the state and this country and to have a new wave of individuals coming here to participate in the American Dream says it all.”
Expediting work authorization has long been the rallying call from elected officials and advocates, as well as migrants themselves.
“I spoke with the asylum seekers, they were clear – ‘We don't want your free food. We don't want your free bed. We don't want your healthcare. We just want to work. We want to have the opportunity to do what everyone else has the opportunity to do’,” Adams said.
Migrants at the Creedmoor shelter in Queens confirmed that sentiment, telling an Eagle reporter that obtaining work is currently their main objective.
“We want to get a good job that will help us work to be independent and not in this area,” Alexander Antonio, a Venezuelan migrant, told the Eagle in August. “I’ll cook, do construction, masonry, whatever work they put on me, cleaning, maintenance.”
Adams has argued that not letting migrants work is “un-American,” a sentiment he repeated on Thursday.
“Imagine where you would be if your parents, your loved one or you came to this country, and you were told that you could not pursue the American dream,” he said. “Imagine if that right was stripped away from you.”
Other officials, including Lander and Queens Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, both spoke of their family’s immigrant routes, and of immigrants’ roles in building New York City.
“As the mayor said, in each generation, whoever they were, they faced hostility and yet, they worked hard here, they settled here, they were creative here,” said Lander. “They built the future of New York City, in our workplaces, in our factories, in our stores, in our shops, in our schools, in our restaurants in our neighborhoods, and that can happen again today.”
Labor leaders were also present on Thursday, saying that they have worker shortages, and that asylum seekers could fill in the gaps.
“The work that we're talking about, is not taking jobs from long-term Americans,” said Williams. “They are jobs that industries cannot fill right now. So, let's be clear about that, industries are telling us they need labor the long-time Americans are not filling.”
“We have people who want to work and people who want to hire them,” he added.
Although the White House has yet to make any moves on work authorization, Governor Kathy Hochul indicated on Thursday, just before the rally began, that strides have been made.
Gothamist reported that Hochul met with members of the Biden Administration on Wednesday, and spoke of “tangible actions,” including a program that could speed up the work authorization process.
“It is the only way to help asylum seekers become self-sustaining, so they can move into permanent housing,” Hochul said in a statement to Gothamist. “I am especially pleased that the federal government has agreed to provide personnel, data, and resources to identify the thousands of individuals in New York who are already eligible, but have not yet applied, for work authorization.”
On top of work authorization, officials also called for protective status for migrants coming from nations like El Salvador and Cameroon, as well as a decompression strategy at the border to lessen the burden on cities like New York.
“They haven't wanted to do the work to formulate a real decompression strategy so we don't ask New York City to do the job of the entire nation,” said Williams. “The White House hasn't wanted to see this issue, a humanitarian need, to be national news with a national response. We need assistance, we need help. The people who came here seeking asylum want to work, apparently the federal government doesn't think so.”
Williams further urged Washington to “see the reality of the challenges.”
“It's not enough to send federal staff to New York City,” he said.
Adams was particularly impassioned on Thursday when speaking about people who have pushed back on the city’s efforts to house and care for migrants, and against the migrants themselves.
To date, there have been major protests against proposed migrant housing in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island.
“All the naysayers, all the people who are pushing back all the people who are fighting against this, go into your lineage, go see when your parents or grandparents came here,” Adams said. “Imagine people were saying to them, ‘There's no place for you here.’ That is wrong and that is not who we are as a city.”
“Don't critique what we've done,” he added. “Don't tell us how we could have done it better. Don't sit in the bleachers and be a detached spectator on this full contact sport called asylum seekers – get on the field and fight this battle with us.”
Williams also urged New Yorkers to be more welcoming toward migrants.
Comptroller Brad Lander, usually in opposition to Mayor Adams, spoke alongside him Thursday to call on federal help and expedited work authorization for asylum seekers. Twitter/Comptroller’s Office
“Immigrants are welcome here, it's really important to say that because for the past week or so I've heard and seen the children of the parents who heard the words, ‘Go home, you're not welcome here,’” said Williams.
“Continue your anger aimed at the government, not at the asylum seeker, because they're not the reasons that you have not got the services that you wanted,” he added.
