Sometimes the best way to understand why something is going wrong is to look at what’s going right. The asylum seekers from the border aren’t the only outsiders in town. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine brought a separate influx of displaced people into U.S. cities that quietly assimilated most of them. “We have at least 30,000 Ukrainian refugees in the city of Chicago, and no one has even noticed,” Johnson told me in a recent interview.
According to New York officials, of about 30,000 Ukrainians who resettled there, very few ended up in shelters. By contrast, the city has scrambled to open nearly 200 emergency shelters to house asylees from the southwest border.
What ensured the quiet assimilation of displaced Ukrainians? Why has the arrival of asylum seekers from Latin America been so different? And why have some cities managed to weather the so-called crisis without any outcry or political backlash? In interviews with mayors, other municipal officials, nonprofit leaders, and immigration lawyers in several states, I pieced together an answer stemming from two major differences in federal policy. First, the Biden administration admitted the Ukrainians under terms that allowed them to work right away. Second, the feds had a plan for where to place these newcomers. It included coordination with local governments, individual sponsors, and civil-society groups. The Biden administration did not leave Ukrainian newcomers vulnerable to the whims of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who since April 2022 has transported 37,800 migrants to New York City, 31,400 to Chicago, and thousands more to other blue cities—in a successful bid to push the immigration debate rightward and advance the idea that immigrants are a burden on native-born people.
To call this moment a “migrant crisis” is to let elected federal officials off the hook. But a “crisis of politicians kicking the problem down the road until opportunists set it on fire” is hard to fit into a tweet, so we’ll have to make do.
What ensured the quiet assimilation of displaced Ukrainians? Why has the arrival of asylum seekers from Latin America been so different? And why have some cities managed to weather the so-called crisis without any outcry or political backlash? In interviews with mayors, other municipal officials, nonprofit leaders, and immigration lawyers in several states, I pieced together an answer stemming from two major differences in federal policy. First, the Biden administration admitted the Ukrainians under terms that allowed them to work right away. Second, the feds had a plan for where to place these newcomers. It included coordination with local governments, individual sponsors, and civil-society groups. The Biden administration did not leave Ukrainian newcomers vulnerable to the whims of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who since April 2022 has transported 37,800 migrants to New York City, 31,400 to Chicago, and thousands more to other blue cities—in a successful bid to push the immigration debate rightward and advance the idea that immigrants are a burden on native-born people.
Yes, those are the only two reasons. I can’t imagine white another reason might be.
Wonder how much of the “successful integration” had to do with being able to work legally without restrictions on Day 1?
Also, Ukrainians are predominantly white, which Republicans are ok with.
The Republican party is a racist organization that ought to be electorally shoved into the dustbin of history, no argument there.
But what’s Biden’s excuse? It’s his administration that’s been making the decisions to get us to this point.
Biden’s excuse is the same institutional racism that is the Republicans’ excuse. I mean it’s no secret that Biden has race issues too. The problem is that Trump is far worse. So you either hold your nose and vote for Biden, you vote for someone who has no realistic likelihood of winning, or don’t vote. I would suggest that only the first of these will stop that treasonous rapist wannabe-dictator from regaining power.
I mean it’s no secret that Biden has race issues too
You have no idea how refreshing it is to not be gaslit about this for once. Honestly, hearing people acknowledge his flaws makes me a lot more ok with voting for him, because I can hold on to the belief that maybe there will be enough political pressure on the party that these mistakes won’t get repeated by the next Democratic president.
The problem is that Trump is far worse.
Biden is a Democrat. He saw an opportunity to both cave to Republicans and legitimize their bullshit. Of course he seized the opportunity.
I’d say that third reason is fueling the other two. Doing anything to support southern migrants makes racist douchebags go bonkers and the Biden administration is afraid to have that fight for some reason, so they ignore the situation and now we’re here and the only ideas they have are more cops and more deterrence.
Our political leaders today are all either bigots or bigot-enabling cowards. Thank goodness we live in a democracy with rights to free speech and assembly because I don’t know how else we’re going to get those leaders to act like human beings again.
Yes, those are the only two reasons. I can’t imagine white another reason might be.
I doubt that the mayor of New York is a white supremacist, but I could be wrong.
He doesn’t have to be a white supremacist to support white supremacy in government.
He’s a cop.
All the blue states/cities should issue these migrants work authorization, protect them from deportation, and assimilate them into workforce. No more sitting around on streets / shelters.
Watch republicans throw hissy fits, litigate all the way to Supreme Court and kill decades worth of time in the process, increase productivity, demonstrate how legalizing illegal immigration can be a net positive, sip tea.
They should, but we’re also talking tens of thousands of immigrants per state. Work doesn’t magically appear because they’re all given permission to work.
Pay them to take care of other immigrants. Tax them on what you pay them.
It’s not that there’s no work, it’s that being a cunt to poor immigrants is easier than governing
Not saying it’s a bad idea but I don’t think the money is there. Cities are straight up prepping to evict migrants, that strongly implies they’ll be fending for themselves. They need federal aid and the House won’t approve that.
All I’m hearing is “no no no no no no no no no”
fending for themselves.
Without the ability to seek legal tax paying work. We complain about how much these people are costing us while forbidding them to take care of themselves, it’s insane and insanely frustrating.
Yeah, it appears when they have paychecks and want to buy food and clothes and live in well maintained apartments and etc.
None of these states are experiencing high unemployment.
Unemployment rate doesn’t really indicate how many jobs are unfilled. They (Texas and Florida) also didn’t ship immigrants evenly across the state.
“Well outside of Mayor Adams making up bullshit and pulling publicity stunts…”
The amount likely pays a huge role.
Per the article, the US got 30k immigrants from Ukraine since the invasion started.
Per this article from September: 2.7 million in 2022, 2.8 million at that point in 2023.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/09/30/how-many-migrants-crossed-the-border-2023-mexico-venezuela-2022/70979085007/Per this article mentions that November had an average daily crossings at 6400, and that it went up considerably in December:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/record-number-migrant-border-crossings-december-2023/Reality is that the number of migrants crossing the US Mexico border is roughly 200-300x more than the number of Ukrainian immigrants. That’s why its hard to accommodate them.
New York got 30k, the US has accepted 271k
Also, comparing accepted asylum applications and border crossings is apples to oranges. Among other things, someone who gets picked up by CBP, gets thrown out, tries again and gets picked up again counts as two border crossings, so the fact that the border is so closed down and we’re persecuting these migrants is artificially inflating that number.
So it still goes from 200-300x the number to being 10-15x. Still an order of magnitude larger. Point still stands.
Edit: Also NYC itself was creating illegal immigration to Canada, paying for migrants arriving in NYC to be bussed up to Roxham Road and illegally cross into Canada.
So it still goes from 200-300x the number to being ?-?x
Ftfy
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It probably has a lot more to do with the amount and condition of how they arrived than anything. Getting 30k people that largely have passports and money is totally different than 30k people arriving with nothing.
The border also sees way more asylum seekers, which also adds to the difficulty. If Abbot was able to send 37k to New York alone, the numbers he’s dealing with dwarf the 30k Ukrainians New York got.
Getting 30k people that largely have passports and money is totally different than 30k people arriving with nothing.
I don’t see how we’re going to complain about these migrants being broke when we’re simultaneously forbidding them from seeking legal employment. As for the passport issue, it’s not like it’s the migrants fault they’re fleeing areas with dysfunctional governments with disorganized paperwork. With the surveillance technology and level of control we have over our own territory we should be able to find some way to address whatever reasonable security concerns officials might have.
Work authorization would help, but it’s not a silver bullet. These migrants need more aid, and are more economic in nature, as they’ve generally spent a month+ traveling through Mexico in a somewhat constant state of dehydration and starvation. Comparing them to people who mostly had established lives and had to grab what they could to flee a war isn’t really a fair comparison.
