New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is being accused by fellow leaders in the Empire State of being missing in action as they scrambled to deal with tens of thousands of migrants that have flooded into the state in recent months.
While Hochul said she is working behind the scenes to address a spike in migrants, leaders have noticed an absence as the state braced for a post-Title 42 surge in migration coming through from the border to New York City in particular, according to a Politico report.
The crisis has caused a number of hot political controversies. New York City Mayor Eric Adams enraged officials outside of the city when he began busing migrants to Orange and Rockland County. Meanwhile, the Big Apple has seen protests and more anger over the decision to move migrants into public school gyms.
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Ccounty leaders have been "miffed" about a lack of a statewide approach to the crisis, according to Politico. The outlet obtained an audio recording of Adams on a call with fellow leaders about the crisis saying that he believes that Hochul "should coordinate a decompression strategy." However, in other comments, he said that Hochul has "been a partner" and communicated with his team. However, Hochul was not on that Thursday call.
One Democratic strategist told the outlet that they would have expected Adams to have received more help from the governor than he has received so far.
Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus told Adams on the call: "The best way to handle this was to have the governor on the call and every county represented and [say], ‘Who could help. The city of New York needs help. Who is available?’"
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The outlet reported that Hochuls’ team held a call last week with county leaders — but that the governor herself was not on the call. Aides told the outlet she was working the phones later in the week to find properties to house migrants, and to lobby the federal government for more financial aid.
Earlier in the week, she had issued an executive order and deployed up to 500 National Guard members to aid with the crisis.
"It’s really important that we pull together as a state and deal with the times that we are in," Hochul said Thursday. "It’s nothing anyone asked for, but the mayor has been managing this, and it has been a difficult, difficult situation for a year now."
This weekend, she appeared on MSNBC’s "Politics Nation" and said that — even with a post-Title 42 surge not yet having appeared — the state is "bursting at the seams."
"Hearing the numbers going down is good news, but it’s small comfort to us because the word we’re getting is that the majority of these individuals who are crossing, it’s still high numbers, are coming to New York State. And we already have over 61,000, over 40,000 housed in New York City. They’re bursting at the seams and Mayor Adams is doing the very best he can in a difficult situation," Hochul said.
Fox News’ Lindsey Kornick contributed to this report.
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