Officials in NYC and upstate counties have now confirmed that there are no plans to return large numbers of migrants from those counties to NYC, but instead a number of them will receive help to relocate within counties like Monroe, Westchester, Suffolk and Albany, where they already are. This is good; we don’t need to keep shuffling these people around, but give them a real shot at starting over.
Some residents and officials of these receiving counties might see this as a loss, with the migrants now more permanently resettling there as opposed to being sent back to NYC’s already pretty overburdened parallel shelter system. They shouldn’t. Whatever short term discomfort these resettlements bring, we can assure them of two things: one, having a family put into their own housing, with a sense of ownership, stability and self-sufficiency, helped along by some case management and supports, is much better socially and economically to having a family in the indefinite limbo of temporary shelter.
Two, in the longer term, these newcomers might be the only thing that stands between your counties and economic decline and population collapse. We’ve made this argument in various forms before and during the current so-called migrant crisis, but let’s just be totally clear here: the economic vibrancy, innovation, cultural cachet and general global power of the United States can be connected by a straight line to its history of mass immigration. Any argument to the contrary is simply ahistorical.
Despite some middle-class exodus, NYC is and will continue to be NYC. We are not going to spiral into a post-industrial managed deterioration or face acute labor shortages. That is not nearly as certain in other parts of the state, even those outside of the rural farm areas that absolutely depend on migrant labor for industrial viability. Weather the grumbling and the protests now, and you’ll reap the rewards later.
If anything, this is a good opportunity for local officials to make an active case for immigration in their communities and not let the anti-immigrant narrative be the default and dominant one. Constituents enraged over the possibility of migrants in their vicinity are often driven by lopsided political messaging, where one side talks about migrants as a threat and the other offers only lukewarm entreaties about being an “immigrant nation” and whatnot. There’s an easy case to be made about the ultimate benefits, not just abstractly but in real, material ways. Local leaders should be making it.
For those migrants already in NYC, we’re glad the city is expanding its debit card program for families to buy food. Inevitable griping aside, the program is both cheaper than contracting companies like DocGo, which City Hall is leaving behind, and better for the families themselves, who know best how to fill their dietary needs.
Conceptually it’s about treating migrants like people, who deserve to make their own choices. This in itself will also help them get on their feet and go from being seen as a financial drag to financial boon. And we’ll say it again: while Albany and Washington have abdicated any responsibility for helping here, we commend Mayor Adams and New York City for stepping up.
