Murphy Seeks $1.4B In Migrant Aid Alongside Hochul, Other Govs

NEW JERSEY - Gov. Phil Murphy joined eight other U.S. governors Monday calling on President Joe Biden to provide $1.4 billion in state and local aid to assuage the migrant crisis, according to a letter from the coalition published Monday.

The group of officials, which also included New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, also advocated for a comprehensive border security legislative package to solve “what has become a humanitarian crisis.”

“The sustained arrival of individuals seeking asylum and requiring shelter and assistance, due to lack of Congressional action on infrastructure and policies, can only be addressed with federal organizational support and funding to meet the public safety and humanitarian needs of our local communities,” the letter reads. “America needs a federal solution that supports our economy, immigrants and fixes our immigration system.”

You can read the full letter here.

The funding would stem from $106 billion in supplemental funding that Biden proposed in October to address the “immediate national security concerns,” including $1.4 billion in aid to states and municipalities, the governors wrote.

“While political motivations continue to delay the negotiations, our economy, states and localities are bearing the brunt of the shortcomings of the existing immigration system,” the letter adds.

Earlier this month, Murphy called on the bus companies that carried Over 1,800 asylum seekers transported from the U.S.-Mexico border to the Garden State earlier this year to provide at least 32 hours’ notice before arriving. Read more: Dozens Of Migrants Dropped In Trenton Stayed, Mayor Says

“Apparently, charter buses are transporting these individuals to New Jersey due to the operators’ unwillingness to transport their passengers to New York City” given the New York City mayor’s executive order last month capping new arrivals, Murphy wrote.

Despite Murphy's demands, local governments in municipalities where migrants have been dropped off, including Edison, Fanwood, Secaucus and Trenton, remain at odds over how to move forward with the current situation.

In Edison, two migrant buses that made a stop on Dec. 30 were turned away due to a lack of “financial or social resources to house immigrants in hotels or provide other accommodations,” Edison Mayor Sam Joshi told Patch. Read more: Organizations Ask Edison Council To Create Asylum Seekers Subcommittee

New Jersey Transit police similarly waited for migrant arrivals in Secaucus to reroute them onto a New York-bound train, a source told the New York Post.

Speaking at an unrelated press conference in January, Murphy called the busing of asylum seekers at the border to northern sanctuary states a “gimmick” from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that can be mitigated by “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Related: $5M Migrant Spending In NJ Considered But Never Realized: Report

The Murphy administration is currently considering using the old Hagedorn State Psychiatric Hospital being used as a processing facility for migrants who remain in the state, although the governor has been quick to note that most asylum-seekers are not staying in New Jersey.

“We strongly urge Congress and the Administration to quickly negotiate an agreement on a border security legislative package that includes federal coordination and decompression at the southern and northern borders; federal funding for both border and interior states and cities receiving new arrivals; and a serious commitment to modernizing our immigration system in the United States,” the governors added in the Monday letter.

“We believe the President’s supplemental request provides a minimum level of funding and actions that will allow the United States to begin transformational reforms to its immigration system and uphold the principles of democracy that America was built upon.”