For months, New York Mayor Eric Adams has asked the Biden administration for help to get migrants working. Under the current process, migrants sit idle for about six months before they can legally work.
Now, New York Governor Kathy Hochul may take this issue into her own hands.
Governor Hochul said according to ABC News:
"I spoke about this at the White House. I said I may do something at the state level. This would be unprecedented."
Hochul’s lawyers are looking at a workaround to get migrants working. She wants to see if she can approve getting migrants to work without getting authorization from the federal government.
Then there was some confusion between the Biden administration and what Governor Hochul saw. In a recent exchange, the Biden administration said to reporters:
"There's a critical mass that we are confident are eligible to apply for work authorization immediately."
Governor Hochul responded and said:
"I don't know what a critical mass is. I don't think it's a high number."
According to reports from Mayor Adams, New York has over 100,000 migrants who have arrived over the past year according to an interview with PBS.
In the interview, Governor Hochul added:
“This crisis originated with the federal government. And it must be resolved through the federal government.”
Adams added:
“One thing we need to be extremely clear, this is unfair to migrants. It's unfair to New York City residents. It is unfair to this entire country when you're looking at what's happening in big cities across America, Chicago just acknowledging they're moving their migrants out of police precincts and into tents, the same thing you're seeing in Los Angeles and other parts, El Paso, Brownsville.”
You can hear more about this situation in this video:
Do you think Governor Hochul can approve migrants to work?
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