Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Governor Kathy Hochul was in Buffalo last week addressing questions on how the state is handling the increase of migrants arriving in New York following the expiration of Title 42.
"We're working very hard to deal with what is a crisis situation," said Gov. Hochul on Friday. "I met with Mayor Adams yesterday, I was in Washington the day before talking about our need to deal with this enormous influx of individuals legally seeking asylum. There's over 71,000 in the State of New York right now. The city (New York City) has been working really hard to house them. They have over 150 places they're housing them now. Shelters have been set up, hotels, and more help is needed. We're working closely with them literally, hour by hour trying to identify places where there are welcoming communities."
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New York State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt tells WBEN he wished Gov. Hochul took a different course of action.
"I wish the governor would instead, publicly ask the President or would have asked him, to reinstate Title 42," says Ortt. "That's the first thing, rather than lapsing of Title 42 and the complete lack of a plan to secure our southern border, as well as the City of New York and the State of New York's willingness to declare ourselves as sanctuary cities and sanctuary states. That is what is now leading to this crisis. The City of New York has nowhere to put them. We're talking about putting them in Rikers Island, putting them on college campuses, putting them in children's schools. It's a self created crisis and a failure of democratic policies."
There have been reports of the Governor possibly considering putting migrants in dormitories of college campuses, such as the SUNY schools in Western New York.
The Governor addressed that possibility on Friday.
"We're just doing an overall survey of all state assets, no decisions have been made. But I wanted to find out what's available at everything from DOD (Department of Defense) facilities to our DC offices to every place we have space, because in the City of New York, they are bursting at the seams, they started having to put them in school gymnasiums. There's a lot of anxiety around this. We have a large state, we need to do it in a right way, a way that working closely with the local officials."
Several members of the New York State Assembly, including Assemblyman Steve Hawley, have signed a letter calling on Governor Hochul not to put migrants in SUNY college dormitories. Senator Ortt says he is putting those requests into action.
"Our conference is introducing a piece of legislation on Monday to do exactly what the assemblyman is asking for in the letter. We're going to put forward a piece of legislation sponsored by Senator Dan Stec, as well as co-sponsored by Deputy Senate Minority Leader Andrew Lanza, to do exactly that, to limit those who can stay on SUNY campuses. They have to be there for academic purposes. They have to be enrolled in classes and they can't use these campuses for the housing of illegal migrants," Ortt said.
Our local counties in Western New York, including Niagara, Genesee, Monroe, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties have declared states of emergency as they do not have the space to accommodate those seeking asylum.
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In addition, Sen. Ortt says his team will continue to look into the executive action former governor Andrew Cuomo signed in 2017, which declares New York as a sanctuary state.
"We think that that's one way that we can maybe stem the flow of these migrants or stop them coming to New York exclusively by changing that designation."