By The newspaper
28 Sep 2023, 01:29 AM EDT
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas who last year activated the massive bus shipment of undocumented immigrants from the border with Mexico to New York, visited Manhattan and said that the situation here seemed “calm” compared to that of his own state.
Although this situation has generated a fiscal and security crisis in New York, Abbott said that the city’s handling of its influx of immigrants is “calm and organized” compared to what was happening in his Texas, he reported. The New York Times.
Referring to his controversial law enforcement policies to keep undocumented immigrants from crossing the southern border, he said: “Democrats or community leaders in New York City, whatever the case may be, say, ‘It’s inhumane to do what [estoy] doing’… Let’s talk about what is inhuman. What is inhumane is that a 1-year-old child dies in New York from fentanyl,” Abbott told the New York Post at the Yale Club after an event at the Manhattan Institute, in reference to the four babies who overdosed at a daycare in the Bronx (NYC) this month.
He added that Biden’s border policies allow Mexican cartels to smuggle fentanyl and other drugs into the United States. “Every state in the United States is now a border state. Every community is a border community. In addition to immigrants, whether in New York City or wherever, fentanyl is spilling all over the country,” he stated.
“To think that a 1-year-old child in New York was exposed to fentanyl, probably due to the open border policies implemented by Joe Biden, is inhumane,” he insisted.
Although he did not meet with local officials, Republican Abbott praised Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul – Democratic leaders – for their calls for President Joe Biden to do more to address the immigration crisis.
He also asked them to join him in urging the president to enforce the immigration laws already in effect and take a tougher stance to stop the increase in undocumented immigrants crossing the border. “This is unsustainable and those are the words of your mayor,” Governor Abbott said of Adams, quoted by FoxNews.
Shortly after, both Hochul and Adams rejected his comments. “Let me be clear: I will not take advice from Greg Abbott,” the governor said when asked about the Texas governor’s statements. “New Yorkers deserve better than to be trapped in a vicious game of political hot potato, so let’s get to the facts: When thousands of asylum seekers arrived at Governor Abbott’s doorstep in search of the American dream, he decided to use them as political pawns. ”said the mayor of NYC.
Adams declared New York a “sanctuary city” last year when Abbott began moving thousands of immigrants away from his border state amid a national political battle between Democrats and Republicans. But then the mayor progressively changed his position when the arrival became massive, exceeding 110,000 people at the moment.
He also wrote an opinion article in Washington Post in mid-January calling on President Biden to close the southern border until migrants’ asylum claims could be processed and proposing a “decompression” strategy to ease the crisis and settle migrants.
In a recent poll, more than two to one (60-28%) of New York residents said they support a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would provide a path to citizenship for the undocumented throughout the United States, according to the latest poll. from the Siena College Research Institute (SCRI). But at the same time, the number of New Yorkers who now support Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to build a border wall has risen to a surprising 41%, amid the massive arrival of immigrants to the city.
The vast majority (82%) of New Yorkers consider the massive wave of immigration that the city has experienced since 2022 as “serious” and 58% want to stop it, according to the previous SCRI survey carried out last month. The same poll showed a decrease in the approval of the Democratic leaders in the main positions: President Biden and Governor Hochul.
Earlier this month Democratic Mayor Adams declared that the massive arrival of immigrants will “destroy” the city. Days later he announced a staggered 15% cut in the budget of all municipal agencies in order to finance the needs of the 110,000 asylum seekers, again blaming the lack of support from President Biden and Governor Hochul, worsening the local crisis in the blue party.