Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said they have been in communication with the state government on the possibility of an increase in migrants seeking asylum in Buffalo. As of Monday, there were no signs of an influx of asylum seekers coming to the city and no orchestrated effort in the works to do so.
"We've been in communication with the state on the potential of asylum seekers. We are certainly hopeful that if any asylum seekers were to come to the City of Buffalo, that we would be informed by the state or other agencies, the federal government. At this point, we do not know of any plans for asylum seekers to come to the City of Buffalo and there are none in our community that we know of at this time," said Mayor Brown following a press conference on Monday.
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Brown adds in terms of planning on a potential influx, it would have to be done in unison with the federal and state governments.
"Any planning would be done in concert with the federal government and the state government. We stand ready to work with the state and federal government, if something should change at this point. There is no plan at this time for asylum seekers to come here that we know of."
We have seen numerous counties in Western New York call for a states of emergency in response to a potential influx of migrants looking to seek asylum in our area. To date, there have been no reports or numbers that show an indication of an increase.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz says he will not be issuing a state of emergency, much to the disapproval of Erie County Legislator Jim Malczewski and a battery of Republicans pressing for emergency action.
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Is Western New York currently at risk for a migrant increase emergency? It may be too early to determine.
"I think this has been incredibly politicized," said Albany insider Jack O'Donnel with O'Donnell & Associates in a WBEN interview. "We've seen it certainly here in Western New York and we've seen it very loudly in New York City where the Mayor of New York City has also been calling on the federal government to do more and to act. We heard from County Executive Poloncarz that not only was he against this as a policy, but he thought it was illegal. He also significantly mentioned that he hasn't seen or heard of any number of these folks coming to Erie County. It may be that there's a lot of smoke more than fire, but a lot more remains for this to play out."
O'Donnell adds, "I think the point of declaring the emergency in the first place was to prevent people [from] the City of New York or entities like the City of New York from moving folks from the city up to, Erie, Niagara, Chautauqua counties and Western New York.
Governor Kathy Hochul Monday called upon the federal government to grant migrants work visas expediently so they can sustain themselves.
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"Ideally, allowing them to get back to their lives, putting them to work," said O'Donnell. "Whether it's in the farm industry, whether that's in the hospitality industry, places where, not only do we know there are big numbers of vacancies, but people have been struggling to find workers. Maybe there's a path forward where some of this stuff happens and these people are given an opportunity to build new lives. But a lot of that still remains to be worked out, especially as this becomes such a such a political hot button issue where people just have to be or feel the need to be strongly on one side or the other rather than finding solutions in the middle."