Gov. Hochul has made clear that she wants Republican-leaning upstate New York communities to tone down their caustic rhetoric about New York City’s migrant crisis and to turn up their compassion by welcoming new arrivals to their towns.
But while Hochul has admonished local governments within the state for enacting what she called “bigoted policies based on fear and intimidation,” she has appeared to be something of a bit player, sparking criticism that she is playing too passive a role during a crisis that is crippling the city’s shelter system.
Hochul’s cautious posture strikes critics as the sign of a weak executive who is taking her promises of local deference too far.
“The state is usually the leader on resettlement efforts, historically,” said Josh Goldfein, a Legal Aid lawyer who is challenging the state over the right to shelter in court. He said Hochul should issue an executive order preventing “NIMBY-minded” elected officials from stopping the relocation of asylum seekers upstate.
“That’s what Cuomo would have done,” he added, referencing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the moderate Democrat who was driven from office by sexual harassment allegations, elevating Hochul, his lieutenant governor. Following the murder of George Floyd, Cuomo signed an executive order forcing police departments to reform or lose funding.
Some political experts see Hochul’s position as driven by the political long game she’s playing.
“She can talk. But forcing people to take migrants is something else,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political consultant. “There’s a price that she is going to pay if she forces it.”
The moderate Buffalo Democrat has avoided launching into anything resembling a pitched political battle with dozens of counties locked in litigation with the city over whether migrants can be relocated to their communities. If anything, Hochul has gone in the opposite direction, arguing that historic right-to-shelter legal protections for the homeless apply only in New York City, not in the state’s other 57 counties. She’s also avoided more drastic steps, such as threatening to strip localities of money if they don’t accept migrants.
Her position may have opened a fissure between the governor and state Attorney General Letitia James, a Brooklyn Democrat whose office typically serves as the state’s lawyer but is not representing the administration in ongoing litigation over the right-to-shelter provision, to which the state is a party. (James’ office has declined to comment on the unusual situation.)
To Hochul’s supporters, who can point to upstate communities like Buffalo and Albany that are taking in asylum seekers, the state’s tactics simply represent a focus on winnable battles and on moving the migrants to places where they would be welcome and could thrive. Hochul has also provided the city with monetary relief, allocating $1 billion in the last state budget while foraging for potential state-run spaces to house arrivals.
Still, next year’s presidential and congressional elections are surely weighing on Hochul. In last year’s surprisingly close governor’s race, Hochul struggled mightily in some suburban and upstate areas. Disappointed Democrats pointed at Hochul when congressional losses in New York helped push the GOP into a House majority.
Relocating thousands of migrants to pivotal political battlegrounds ahead of the 2024 election — when those same areas could decide control of Congress — could carry significant perils for the governor.
Sheinkopf, the Democratic consultant, pointed to COVID mandates implemented by Hochul in 2021 that drew fierce upstate pushback, and her plan to mandate housing creation in the suburbs that fell apart this year in the Legislature.
“Politics is all of it,” Sheinkopf said, adding that the migrant crisis could be determinative in the House and Senate in 2024. “She is no fool. And she smells it. She sees it.”
A suggestion from Hochul on Wednesday that New York State might reserve another $1 billion in next year’s budget to support the city’s handling of asylum seekers drew a harsh response from GOP circles, offering a possible preview of the type of political fodder her opponents will use.
“Insisting that taxpayers foot the bill for the consequences of Albany’s self-made crises is disrespectful,” state Sen. Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, a Long Island Republican, said in a statement Thursday. “Our ill-conceived, lenient approach has enabled potentially hazardous individuals to roam freely on our streets.”
Hochul told reporters in Albany on Thursday that she was working with Mayor Adams, another moderate Democrat, to “make sure these individuals are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.”
Adams has initiated a city-run busing program that continues to send migrants to areas including Albany, Buffalo and Rochester, as the city’s litigation against more than 30 localities plays out. Hochul has spoken out in favor of the program.
The buses have been deeply controversial since they began to roll from the city toward the Hudson Valley in the spring.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day, a Republican, said in May that “child rapists” and “criminals” were among the asylum seekers. He declared that he wanted to grab Adams “by the throat.” Rockland sued the city over the program, halting buses headed there.
Hochul expressed disappointment with upstate responses, but largely stayed out of the line of fire.
With the crisis cresting, stretching the city’s shelter system to extreme levels and costing enormous sums of money, Hochul may have no choice but to weigh a new role and new tactics.
Former Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, said Hochul’s jurisdictional powers are limited, and the intense opposition upstate to welcoming migrants poses practical problems.
“The governor put up a billion dollars in the budget,” Paterson said by phone. “She came up with this idea very late in the budget process and got the Legislature to totally go along with it — so I thought that was a major move.”
But he added that whatever solutions Hochul and Adams can conjure, the “mammoth” number of migrants streaming into the city could create “such a disaster that it’s going to reflect on everyone who was involved.”
