SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — New York City cannot accommodate the massive number of migrants being shipped to the city from border states, says Mayor Eric Adams. A new report from Bloomberg says the Biden administration is considering moving migrants elsewhere, and the Atlantic City International Airport is on the shortlist.
Local officials, however, want no part of that.
The Atlantic City Airport, which is located in Egg Harbor Township, is run by the South Jersey Transportation Authority, on land leased from the federal government. Egg Harbor Township Mayor Laura Pfrommer said in a statement that the town does not have the resources to house thousands of migrants.
She believes the federal government needs to deal with the crisis at the border rather than pass the burden onto small towns.
The airport is also a military base. State Sen. Vince Polistina said it can’t have unvetted immigrants in sensitive areas.
“It is the primary base for protection of the New York region down to Washington, D.C., and there is a lot that goes on there from a training perspective, from our national security perspective,” he said.
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Beyond the lack of resources, he said the airport is just not a suitable place for makeshift encampments. “There is no location to put anything on the base that would be secure enough.”
Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small was relieved to learn the proposed plan doesn’t include his city — and he would be extremely opposed if it did.
Gov. Phil Murphy said the Biden administration has not said anything to him about the plan. He said New Jersey would not be able to take migrants at this scale without an enormous amount of federal resources.