House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday told New York City that if it wanted federal money to help house migrants amid the ongoing crisis there, it would have to axe its sanctuary city status.
In an interview with The New York Post, Johnson expressed confidence that House Republicans would require the heavily Democrat city to get rid of its policies that restrict police from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to deport migrants accused of committing crimes.
“The idea that you would maintain a sanctuary city status and then cry out to the federal government for assistance in what you’ve done is, to me, unconscionable,” Johnson told the Post. “I’m certain that will be one of our proposals, and it should.”
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New York City Mayor Eric Adams and House Speaker Mike Johnson. (Getty Images)
Johnson’s comments come following a request from the Biden administration for $1.4 billion in funding for state and local governments across the country to fund the care of migrants released into the U.S.
However, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and four other big-city mayors have rejected that amount, and instead asked for $5 billion in funding relief.
Johnson also blasted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as “one of the worst cabinet secretaries in the history of the United States,” and said his job performance in the role was “inexcusable.”
Asylum seekers line up in front of the historic Roosevelt Hotel, converted into a city-run shelter for newly arrived migrant families in New York City, United States on September 27, 2023. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“President Biden can’t help his age. In some ways, he’s not able to control what happens with the economy that they’ve created. But you could change the border policies overnight, and they are unwilling to do it,” he said.
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“And it is terribly destructive to our country in so many ways — six million people-plus have been apprehended at the border, 1.7 million getaways. Fentanyl has just led to an absolute catastrophe; the leading cause of death is overdoses for Americans aged 18-49, human trafficking, enriching the cartels, it goes on and on and on. And all of that traces back to their policy decisions,” he added.
