'Secure the border' - City Councilman warns NYC can't handle more migrants
NEW YORK - A New York City Councilman is issuing a dire warning about the city's future due to a migrant influx.
Councilman Robert F. Holden (D-Queens) spoke about the issue in an interview on Monday's Good Day New York.
"We're bursting at the seams now. How can we take thousands more, by the day by the way, so this is getting to be a situation where we can't house them and that's a critical situation," Holden said. "We have no room in New York City."
He also used a position touted nationally by Republicans.
"The answer is to secure the border," Holden says. "We're a sovereign nation. We should get to choose who comes in."
The New York City Council will begin holding hearings on Monday on the city's response to the arrival of tens of thousands of asylum seekers. Many have been bused to the city from Texas.
"Secure the border. I'm going to say that," Holden says. "It's not popular with the city council but anybody else have other ideas?"
He says the buses should be turned around and suggested that they be sent to the White House.
"We can't absorb this many people coming into New York City," Holden says.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has said that the city cannot deal with another influx of migrants this winter, should Title 42, a federal policy used by the Biden and Trump administrations to prevent asylum seekers from entering the U.S. during a public health emergency, expire.
Related: Mayor Adams says NYC is not prepared for migrant surge
"The flow of asylum seekers to New York City has slowed in recent months but the tool that the federal government has used to manage those coming over the border is set to expire this week, and we have been told in no uncertain terms that, beginning today, we should expect an influx of busses coming from the border and that more than 1,000 additional asylum seekers will arrive in New York City every week," Adams said in a statement on Sunday.
Holden warns that there is not enough housing for people already living in New York City and thousands of unplanned migrants is unsustainable.
"New York City is not going to survive if this keeps going on," Holden says. "I see a lot of my constituents moving out, fed up with New York City."
He added, "You have to have people in the middle-class stay. That's my constituents...middle class... and they're leaving."
Holden is among three Queens council members who are members of the Commonsense Caucus. It says its goal is to prioritize quality of life issues to improve the everyday experience of living, working, and raising families in New York City.