Democratic New York City Councilman Robert Holden blasted Gov. Kathy Hochul ’s (D-NY) “endless handouts” to migrants as the state enrolls thousands of migrants on welfare.
Holden, who represents Queens on the city council, said it was time to “end this madness” of rolling out benefits for migrants who came into the country illegally while homeless and low-income New Yorkers still suffer.
“The endless handouts to the entire world are a slap in the face to every citizen who has contributed to and sacrificed for this country,” Holden told the New York Post. “It’s time to end this madness.”
The comment comes after the state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance modified its “Safety Net Assistance” program’s eligibility rules to include non-citizens with pending applications for legal asylum status. The program allows the state to use taxpayer dollars to give cash payments to asylum-seekers who don’t qualify for traditional assistance.
It is not clear how many migrants are enrolled in the program, but the OTDA estimates that 90% of migrants do not qualify for additional assistance. However, even 10% of the migrants are approximately 17,000 people because New York City has seen more than 173,000 asylum-seekers flood the city’s system from the United States’s southern border since the spring of 2022. More than 66,000 migrants are still in the city’s care.