New York City officials are giving $5,000 in grants and gift cards to illegal migrants to help rent their own apartments in the city’s inflated housing market.
The Asylee Moveout Assistance grants are not being given to poor Americans, nor even to young Americans who wish to move to New York City — even though the city’s housing costs have been inflated by the government welcome for more than 200,000 economic migrants.
So far, the grants have been given to 150 migrant families and pregnant women, a city official told Gothamist, a New York media site.
“We look forward to supporting more households as we assess the successes of the pilot and feasibility of scaling up and expanding access to this form of assistance,” a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Homeless Services told Gothamist, which also reported:
Migrant families who line up housing can receive one-time grants of up to $4,000 to help pay for moving expenses, security deposits, first and last month’s rent, and other household supplies, [spokeswoman Neha] Sharma said. … Families [also] receive up to $1,000 gift cards for necessary household items, and moving companies, landlords and other merchants are paid directly, she said.
Similar foreigner-first housing giveaways are common in Chicago, Colorado, and other places where local Democratic and business elites want to attract and keep more illegal and legal migrants.
In theory, New York City offers the same service to local Americans. But the city’s rules set up a Catch-22 for Americans: They have to apply and be approved by city bureaucrats for the rental check during the brief period when an apartment is advertised and then rented.
The city is already spending heavily on hotel rooms and shelters, for $372 per night, for 65,000 migrants. Overall, teh city is expected to borrow $12 billion to support the migrant population
The migrants have been a huge windfall for the city’s real estate investors. It has pushed up rents for young Americans throughout the city and has also steered at least $2.2 billion in taxes into their accounts.
City officials have complained about the ballooning taxpayer costs of President Joe Biden’s migrant inflow. But the city’s business elites want to keep the flood of subservient low-wage workers, apartment-sharing renters, and taxpayer-funded consumers.
For example, the city has provided debit cards to at least, 7,300 economic migrants to simplify the distribution of food aid. In July, the New York Times described the process:
“We weren’t even expecting it,” Mr. Gil said in Spanish, expressing gratitude. “They told us it’s only for food, no fast food, only at certain places, and no cash transfers and card sharing allowed.”
… They settled on two panini sandwiches, a container with four hard-boiled eggs, three soft drinks and two big bags of chips.
They handed the gray debit card to the cashier — who said the cards had become a frequent sight at the shop — and then scanned the receipt for their lunch total: $44.61.
The migrants also replace the ordinary Americans who flee the city’s high rents, bad schools, and rising crime. This “Extraction Migration” policy prevents the rise of a politically powerful middle class that could curb the political and economic power of local elites.
City elites hide their unpopular power grab behind the 1950s “Nation of Immigrants” narrative. That elite-imposed narrative repurposes the Statue of Liberty from a celebration of Americans’ rights and constitution into a “Golden Door” invite for foreign economic migrants.
Some local politicians want the City Council to repeal the city’s “Sanctuary” laws that protect migrants from law enforcement. CBS reported on August 14:
Back in June, [Councilman Robert] Holden, along with Councilman Joe Borelli, introduced a bill to repeal New York sanctuary status. Holden claims the City Council won’t bring the bill up for a vote because it is, in his words, too “woke.”
“They wont. I know they won’t unless, again as I said, something bad happens,” Holden said.
“This issue will destroy New York City … and it is going to harm long-term New Yorkers,” Mayor Adams told PBS in September 2023.
We need to be clear on that. We already had a homeless population. We already had low-income New Yorkers that were struggling to feed themselves and stay into their homes. We are going to transform this city, if this is not under control, with a price tag of $12 billion … [If] we don’t get this right, it is going to destroy this city, and it’s going to harm [New Yorkers]. And I cannot sugarcoat this to the New York City public. They need to know what we are facing right now.
But the migrant inflow allows the city’s Democratic politicians and local business leaders to avoid the politically painful task of reforming local laws, spending, and agencies to help Americans get married have kids, and move up to the middle class.
In 2021, 211,000 babies were born in New York state, down from 241,000 in 2011.
The “international migration Ponzi scheme is the only thing that averts a demographic doom loop for cities like New York and San Francisco,” as Americans flee the Democrats’ huge and badly-run cities, Michael Lind wrote in a September 2023 article for Compact Magazine.
