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Tags: kathy hochul | westchester | joe biden | democrats | open border | migrants

Astorino: Coddling, Perks for Illegal Immigrants Signals Lawbreaking OK

rally empire state democrats and or gubernatorial and or presidential politics
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at a rally for Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., and other state Democrats on Nov. 6, 2022, in Yonkers, New York. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

By    |   Friday, 12 July 2024 07:40 AM EDT

It's hard to fathom how much damage President Joe Biden and his Democratic Party have done due to their open border policies.

Three years ago, I was tipped off that the Biden administration, with the full support of Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., was secretly flying illegal immigrants from U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) facilities along the Texas border into the Westchester County, New York Airport.

The plan was to do this in the dead of night, in the darkest corners of the airport, then transport them around the state.

Occasionally, I followed these buses from the airport to various locations like a Costco parking lot and a New York State Thruway rest stop.

There, the "asylum seekers" would be let off the bus, get into waiting cars, then be whisked away.

When I blew the whistle on the clandestine operation, I was immediately called a lying xenophobic racist by the usual suspects, while basically being ignored by the media.

I wrote President Joe Biden about the unfolding disaster in New York and respectfully asked him to answer a series of questions regarding his "migrant" flights.

Dispersing unvetted illegal aliens by the tens of thousands into unsuspecting communities was and still is a public safety and health concern.

Unsurprisingly, I've yet to receive a reply from the White House.

I did everything possible to expose the underhanded operation to the public at the time, and, as I did, one thing became crystal clear: Democrats responsible for the airlifts didn't want the public to know about them.

They even admitted as such on video I obtained from a Westchester County police officer's body camera.

The officer was talking to one of the contracted bus drivers waiting for the next Biden Express flight to arrive.

The driver told the police officer that if the American people found out about these secret flights, they would know their government is betraying them.

We do know, however, the extent of a similar but different DHS program to fly illegal immigrants directly from their country of origin to our communities.

The Biden administration admits to 160,000 in just the past six-months, but the Center for Immigration Studies (cis.org) pegs it closer to 326,000.

Additionally, Biden has waved his magic wand and somehow, without authority, has "paroled" around two million illegal aliens.

His recent executive orders meant to cap at 2,500 per day the number of asylum claims at ports of entry is nothing more than a cheap stunt.

It's effectively a daily starting point, due to loopholes, and does little to stem the tide.

New York City has received more than 200,000 illegal aliens in the past two years alone, and there are 200,000 more right behind them (and 200,000 behind them).

Only a small percentage of these individuals will actually qualify for asylum, but it won't even matter.

The overwhelming majority will remain — right here.

Why wouldn't you stay in a city and state guaranteeing cash, food, shelter, education, clothes, health care, and mobile phones?

And to make matters worse, every perk the city and state provides sends a signal in bright neon-lights that breaking the law in America is rewarded.

A few months ago, progressives in New York City hailed as a great victory a legal compromise with homeless advocates that limits the stays of illegal aliens in homeless shelters to 30 days — 60 for those under age 21 — without addressing the patently obvious: where will the existing illegal aliens, and those showing up by the hundreds daily, go?

The city never should have taken the position that a 1981 consent agreement to temporarily house the homeless was ever meant to cover illegal aliens.

They are, by law, ineligible to receive public benefits. And yet, Democratic "leaders" in New York allocate billions of our tax dollars to do just that.

Democrats are now operating in full cognitive dissonance.

They refuse to acknowledge that the "migrant" crisis will continue to get worse as long as the border remains virtually open and sanctuary status continues in New York, and many other cities.

Any person on the street could tell you that, but Joe Biden's party would rather bury its head in the sand.

Woke Democrats are so afraid of sounding un-PC that they refuse to admit the obvious causes of the self-inflicted crisis, ridiculously trying to blame Republicans for chaos that Democrats clearly created — and own.

What they're doing is beyond morally wrong. It's highly gdangerous, as we've seen with recent horrific murders and violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants in New York, Maryland, and Texas.

Walk along streets in Manhattan on any given night and you'll see what the Democrats have wrought.

Illegal aliens are sleeping in every available shelter bed, while actual citizens who genuinely need temporary housing are now out of luck.

New York City school kids have lost their gymnasiums and class sizes have exploded, senior citizens have lost daily places to gather, union members and low-wage workers have lost jobs — all replaced by illegal aliens.

Hospital emergency rooms are packed — your wait time for treatment just got longer. And all the while, the buses keep rolling in. There are ways to stop this "migrant" crisis.

Enforce immigration laws, shut the border, construct physical barriers, restore Trump-era policies like Remain in Mexico, and end sanctuary designations.

To do this, though, would be an admission by Democrats that they have been wrong all along, which they will never do. But voters will let them know loud and clear on November 5th.

Rob Astorino is Host of "The Rob Astorino" on Saturdays, on Newsmax TV. He was the Westchester County executive from 2010 to 2017. He has a long association with the New York area.

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Politics
It's hard to fathom how much damage President Joe Biden and his Democratic Party have done due to their open border policies.
kathy hochul, westchester, joe biden, democrats, open border, migrants
951
2024-40-12
Friday, 12 July 2024 07:40 AM
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