New York is looking to dedicate about $2.4 billion for the next fiscal year to accommodate the needs of New York City’s growing illegal immigrant population, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said Tuesday.
This proposed amount accounts for roughly 1 percent of the record-breaking $233 billion plan to fund the New York government in Fiscal Year 2025, which begins in April. It not only more than doubles what Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, had previously pledged but also exceeds the investment in illegal immigrant aid for the current budget cycle.
By comparison, the Democrat-dominated New York Legislature last year signed off a spending package totaling $229 billion, including $1.9 billion to care for the massive influx of illegal immigrants arriving in New York City.
According to the blueprint, the extra $2.4 billion would go toward short-term shelter services, health care services, and legal assistance to help the new arrivals through the asylum and work-permitting process while they are here.
More than $650 million would be reserved for costs associated with controversial mega tent complexes at Floyd Bennett Airfield in southeast Brooklyn, at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in eastern Queens, and at Randalls Island, according to the blueprint.
It would also be used to cover the expenses related to the deployment of the National Guard. Over the past year, Ms. Hochul has called up more than 2,000 National Guard members to support the operation of migrant shelters, with hundreds of them focusing on helping process applications for temporary work permits.
“We must support the city of New York in this moment,” the governor said Tuesday, arguing that the aid is crucial not only for the recipients themselves but also to avoid scaring businesses away if illegal immigrants were left to sleep on the Big Apple’s streets.
Despite the added costs of the illegal immigrant aid, there are no recommendations in Ms. Hochul’s plan calling for increased taxes on high-earning New Yorkers or businesses. Thanks to the strong revenue performance, a $4.3 billion gap the state faced for the coming fiscal year has transformed into a $2.2 billion surplus.
Since the spring of 2022, more than 130,000 people have come through New York City’s already crowded shelter system after illegally entering the United States. Some 70,000 still rely on city-run shelters for their basic needs.
New York Mayor Eric Adams, meanwhile, has not publicly set a number for how much money he wants to go directly from the state to his city in the 2025 budget cycle to help manage the flood of illegal immigrants. However, he has been aggressively pushing for more state aid.
After attending Ms. Hochul’s State of the State speech in Albany last week, Mr. Adams told reporters he was not troubled that the governor did not address New York City’s immigrant crisis in her remarks.
“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” Adams said last week, adding that his budget office was in talks with the governor’s budget office. “I’m going to let them do their thing while I do my thing.”
In the meantime, Mr. Adams has said that the city is poised to spend more than $12 billion on illegal immigrants through Fiscal Year 2025. In the wake of growing costs to house and feed the newcomers, his administration has implemented a 5 percent budget cut that will affect virtually every city agency, ranging from cutting overtime hours in the fire department to axing Sunday services at public libraries to reducing the number of litter baskets for sanitation.
