Not even the most imaginative right-wing operative could have dreamed up an example of left-wing-governance failure so pure, so complete in every last detail.
The migrant crisis that began in spring 2022 has restored New York’s reputation as “the ungovernable city.” It has also revived the tradition of mendicant urbanism. Back during the “bad old days,” New York mayors such as David Dinkins reflexively blamed all the city’s problems on inadequate state and federal aid. Current mayor Eric Adams, and other local Democrats, have insisted that New York’s greatest need in responding to the migrants is more funding and other assistance from state and federal government.
That New York is the victim of federal malfeasance is, in crucial respects, indisputable. New York’s homeless-shelter system, which city government has been awkwardly trying to repurpose into a network of refugee centers, is now host to a record-high census. No way would that be so were the southern border less porous.
But the city bears most of the blame. The only cities that have experienced migrant crises anything like New York’s are border cities. The important difference between border cities and New York is that the former are on the border. Only New York, among major cities in the U.S., confers a “right to shelter” on everyone: single adults and families, in all climate conditions, regardless of immigration status. That’s why New York has attracted so many more migrants than other major cities, and why city officials are now contemplating setting up tents in Central Park.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the National Review Online (paywall)
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Stephen Eide is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
