NYC NOW - January 25, 2024 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Governor Kathy Hochul and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins can’t see eye to eye on school funding. Plus, city watchdogs flagged nearly 400 donations to Eric Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign as potentially requiring disclosures it didn't provide. And finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill and reporter Arun Venugopal discuss New York’s migrant issue and the politics around it.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. When it comes to school funding, a key state lawmaker and Governor Kathy Hokele aren't seeing eye to eye. The Governor's state budget proposal includes a slight bump in state aid for school districts, but it also calls for changes to a complicated state funding formula. That means hundreds of school districts with declining enrollment would see a funding cut. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousin says that's a problem. Anything that starts with, you know, half of the school districts in the state getting less money is,

it's obviously a very difficult conversation to begin. New York City schools would still see a funding increase under Hockel's plaint. The governor says the proposal would make school funding more equitable. City watchdogs flagged nearly 400 donations to Eric Adams' 2021 mayoral campaign as potentially requiring disclosures it didn't provide. WNYC's Charles Lane has the details. Under the city's public matching program where small donations are matched 8 to 1 by taxpayers, donations bundled by campaign supporters are supposed to be disclosed as such. But according to an ongoing audit by the city's campaign finance board, Adams's campaign may not have always done this. A WNYC analysis

found the campaign received nearly $400,000 in taxpayer money due to the suspect. bundlers. The campaign says exemptions in the law permitted the lack of disclosure. Neither Adams nor his campaign have been accused of wrongdoing, but the audit could lead regulators to clawback any improperly remitted matching funds from the campaign. Stick around. There's more after the break. For years, the issues of border security and immigration have long been fixtures in Republican politics. But in 2024, there are increasing signs that the issue isn't confined to Republican voters. and border states. It's on the minds of Democrats and among voters right here in New York. There's growing concern about the arrival of nearly 170,000 migrants in New York City since

2022 and the demands on city resources. And some longtime observers say those attitudes among voters could signal a significant shift in the politics of immigration law and border security ahead of the 2024 elections. For more, my colleague Michael Hill talked with WMYC's Arun Vinica Paul about New York's migrant issue and the politics around it. Arun, clearly the movement of migrants into New York in other cities is something that's having a big impact on this election cycle. Yeah, Michael, in the same way that urban crime was a conservative talking point in the 2022 midterms helped swing several congressional districts in New York to Republicans.

Border security in this current cycle is becoming a focus for Republicans. Let's listen to this ad that the National Republican Congressional Committee ran back in September. An unmitigated crisis. This group behind me right now is the biggest mass single crossing I have ever seen. Not just at the border, but in the Big Apple. The migrant crisis has hit a breaking point, and migrants are being forced to sleep on the sidewalk. Arun, you recently sat with a longtime authority on the subject of immigration, who thinks the arrival of migrants in cities across.

the country could signal a pivotal moment. What did he have to say? Yes, Muzzaffir Chishti. He's a senior fellow and director of the Migration Policy Institute at New York University School of Law. He's studied this issue since the 1970s. He's testified before congressional committees. He's known as an independent thinker. And he thinks we are in a fundamentally different moment in this longstanding debate over immigration. He says the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants here in the city, as well as the city's handling of the issue, have really become fodder for Republicans. And he says President Biden hasn't really helped by being seen since the start of this influx as refusing even to acknowledge that this is

a crisis. I asked Chishti what he thought the political impact will be of migrants arriving in cities like New York. He predicts that there actually will be some movement. We will see this was an infection point in America. history on immigration, at least the political impact of this, is that till the vassing chapter, the general assumption was that Republicans are skeptical are growing more or more skeptical about immigration, and Democrats are uniformly not only pro-immigrant, but intensely pro-immigrant, like it would be to a disadvantage politically if you're showing any skepticism about immigration. That was, I think, the beginning of how Mayor Adams in New York

behaved. Many New York City politicians today behaved. I think during this chapter, you began to say the change in the politics of the Democratic Party, that now leaders in the Democratic Party are openly challenging the unquestioned pro-immigration policy that anyone can come. We can be the land of opportunity at all levels. We are now in 2024. It's an election year. Do you think there's any chance we're going to see any change on this issue by November? That's a very good question.

I think to do anything on a contentious issue like immigration in a presidential election year is almost by definition a non-starter. But I think what makes it possible to even believe that something could happen is twofold. One is that by tying the border security measures being debated in Congress with a very important imperative of foreign policy, which is aid to Ukraine and Israel, you just have increased the political stakes. and that may make it sort of imperative for both the president and leaders in Congress to come to a compromise. The second is that given the election and given that this is going to be a rematch of an election, potentially between Trump and Biden, and given the fact that immigration was the signature card of Trump in the last election, it's going to be his calling card again. So it is actually in President Biden's interest in an election year to be seen that he was tough on immigration.

Because to go to the polls with the kind of perceived record on immigration that the president has of record number of not only arrivals but admissions into the country, that is a very difficult message to send. Now, Arun, you've been talking to others besides Chishti and going through some polling data. What else are you learning about the shifting politics of the migrant issue? Well, in terms of how New Yorkers feel about migrants, I'd say there is ambivalence. Take a poll that was commissioned by the Housing Group, Wynn, and the New York Immigration Coalition. A thousand respondents were asked, if they agree with this statement, New Yorkers should continue to live by the words written on the Statue of Liberty. Give me your tired, your poor.

Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me. 60% said yes, they do agree. They were also asked if every New Yorker in need should be entitled to a roof over their heads and a bed to sleep in until they get back on their feet. 85% said yes. But then, when they were asked specifically about migrants, it's a different picture. 57% said migrants and asylum seekers with children. should be required to reapply for shelter every 60 days. And 70% say that New Yorkers have already accepted enough migrants, Michael.

Now, I put all of this to pollster John Zogby, who wasn't involved with that survey. And he says what's clear is that the migrant issue is no longer just something that's a big deal in border states, but even a Democratic stronghold like New York. He thinks that it's going to have a central role in the congressional races this year, in the same way that urban crime was a big issue in the midterms two years ago. That's WMYC's Arun Venigapal talking with my colleague Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day.

I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.