New York City’s federal immigration office has appointments for illegal immigrants waiting to get a court date after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border “mostly booked” through 2033.
According to the New York Post, new arrivals in the Big Apple might wait a decade before going before a judge. Tae Johnson, the acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reportedly said that he was working to take care of the issue.
“There is some request to the Hill to give us the authority [where] we can actually service it virtually and have people agree to accept their documents electronically,” Johnson reportedly told lawmakers, adding that the “technological piece” of the backlogs could be disseminated by “telephonic interviews or virtual interviews.”
The agency is reportedly borrowing US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) workers to help with the backlog (via the New York Post):
Immigration experts told The Post that the massive backlog makes the Big Apple the ideal place for migrants with dubious asylum claims to settle after being released at the southern border.
Migrants are entitled to work permits while their claims are pending.
On Tuesday, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) read aloud the latest data — which he said was updated on April 7 — at a hearing assessing ICE’s budget as illegal immigration stays at record highs.
“Top 10 backlog locations: New York number one, mostly booked through March of 2033 — 2033. They got about 32,000-plus there [in line],” Cuellar said — suggesting that the raw number of pending appointments has fallen by about 7,000 over two months, even if they are pushed farther into the future.
“Let’s take New York. They’ll report up to March of 2033. Then they get a notice to appear, an NTA… and then that’s another two to three years before they can go up to a judge,” the Democrat noted. “It’s a little concerning that some of them have to wait to 2033 just to appear before you and then they have to get another two to three years before they even go to an immigration judge.”
This month, Townhall reported how New York City’s health commissioner, Ashwin Vasan, said that half of the illegal immigrants coming into the city are not vaccinated for polio. And, many come from countries with high rates of infectious illnesses.
“More than 50,000 people have come to New York City (NYC) in the past year shortly after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border,” Vasan said in an eight-page letter to doctors, obtained by the Post. “I am writing now to underscore how critical it is that health care providers take a wide range of considerations into account when working with people who are seeking asylum..Vaccination rates for certain diseases are low in some of the most common countries of origin, with rates hovering around 50% for polio as an example.”
Last year, NYC Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, complained that it would cost his city billions of dollars to take care of the migrants that were sent on buses from the southern border.
“This is a humanitarian crisis that started with violence and instability in South America, and it’s being accelerated by American political dynamics,” Adams claimed, adding that “this crisis is not of our own making,” despite being a sanctuary city.