Venezuelan Work Permit OK Could Help 15K NYC Asylum Seekers: Mayor

NEW YORK CITY — President Joe Biden's decision to effectively OK work permits for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan asylum seekers could help 15,000 migrants in New York City.

But this estimate by Mayor Eric Adams came with a significant caveat: the city has 60,000 total asylum seekers in its care, he said Thursday.

"This is really moving in the right direction, but we have a long way to go," Adams told CNN.

Adams and other New York officials spent months pressuring the Biden administration to let asylum seekers get authorization to work in the U.S.

They've argued that it would help ease the migrant crisis gripping New York City, where 110,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the past year, largely from South America, and had to wait months to legally work.

The Biden administration Wednesday took a step in that direction when officials said they'd grant Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, to an estimated 472,000 Venezuelans who've arrived in the country as of July 31.

Adams, who has had a public rift with Biden, said the city is getting asylum seekers not just from Venezuela, but also West Africa, Russian-speaking regions and South and Central America.

He called the TPS decision a "starting point."

"We can't spike the ball, but we appreciate that 15,000 migrant and asylum seekers are now something that we can look towards moving out of our care," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.