Bill Maher Blasts Progressives Over Illegal Immigrant Crisis

Bill Maher in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan. 7, 2017. Michael Kovac/Getty Images for J/P Haitian Relief Organization

Self-proclaimed “old-school liberal” Bill Maher is again slamming progressive leaders, this time for their handling of the illegal immigrant crisis.

The HBO host over the weekend specifically criticized leaders of “woke” cities like New York City for welcoming asylum seekers and in the same breath panicking and complaining when they actually get shipped to them from overwhelmed border states.

“It’s just a good example of, ‘Could everybody just stop the posturing?'” Mr. Maher, 67, queried out loud on his “Club Random” podcast Sunday, commenting on the humanitarian crisis. “Don’t pretend that you love migrants so much and then when [border states] send them to you, you don’t like them.

“Yeah, you liked them when it wasn’t your problem because you’re not a border state. And then when they show up in Chicago, in New York, you’re like ... ‘What are we going to do with these people?’” Mr. Maher continued.

No Room At the Inn in New York

It was this week that advocates accused New York City of using illegal immigrants as “props” in a ploy to get federal money, according to a story by the Associated Press.

For days, newly arrived international illegal immigrants have waited outside New York City’s Roosevelt Hotel sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder on the sidewalk in hopes of landing a spot in the city’s shelter system. The hotel is now an illegal immigrant shelter and intake center.

Meanwhile, for weeks, the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, has said the city is out of room and has tried to deter more asylum seekers from coming. Some critics have accused city officials of exploiting the visible lines outside the hotel as part of a campaign to pressure state and federal officials and solicit more money for tackling the crisis.

“Mayor Adams should not be using asylum seekers as props to get the attention of the Biden administration or discourage asylum seekers from coming to New York,” said Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition.

Mr. Awawdeh said the city needs to work harder to free up space in shelters and keep illegal immigrants off the streets.

“It’s hard to imagine that there are not enough beds to actually accommodate the people that the Adams administration is leaving out on the street,” he told the media outlet in a statement.

To that, Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom pushed back at a Thursday press briefing, noting the city’s shelter system is at a “breaking point.”

“I don’t think I or any person in this administration would use people to do any type of a stunt,” Ms. Williams-Isom said.

Current Policies Offer No Solution

For his part, Mr. Maher said the crisis, and specifically the sight of recently arrived illegal immigrants sleeping on cardboard in the streets of New York, is a result of policies that are “the reverse of what liberalism really is.”

“Liberalism is ‘For the sake of humanity and compassion, can we get these people off the streets?’ And woke is, ‘How dare you ask them to move! This is their home,'” he said. “No, it’s not!”

He maintained that “there’s got to be … a better solution” to the general homelessness issue than putting up the unhoused in hotels.

“You know, get a barracks. They’re not that expensive,” he said during a chat with fellow TV personality Sharon Osbourne.

“There’s got to be a solution to this that is compassionate. Is it that hard to be compassionate?” he asked.

It’s not the first time in recent years that Mr. Maher has spoken out against increasingly left-leaning Democrat policies.

In March of 2022, the comedian called out those on the left for becoming too extreme during a segment of conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro’s “The Ben Shapiro Show: Sunday Special.”

“Look I haven’t changed … at all. My politics haven’t changed. They’ve changed,” said Maher, referring to those on the left of the political aisle.