Immigration
Government employees asked to take paid leave to help with migrant surge at the border: report
As an unprecedented number of migrants continue to cross the southern border into the U.S., the government is reportedly offering employees paid leave in exchange for volunteering at migrant facilities.
The New York Times reported that agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and NASA, are urging their employees to take a temporary leave of absence in order to help out at the southern border.
Employees reportedly received an email last week stating: “Will you consider taking a four-month paid leave from your job to help care for migrant children in government-run shelters packed with new arrivals at the border?”
Ken Klippenstein, a reporter for The Intercept, obtained a copy of an email NASA sent to their employees. According to the email, Health and Human Services (HHS) requested candidates to serve up to a 120-day “voluntary deployment” to provide care for unaccompanied migrant children, including finding placements for children in foster care.
The email noted that this temporary position is a “reimbursable detail” that provides travel, lodging and per diem.
The Times reported that 2,722 government employees volunteered as of Friday, with most of their salaries being picked up by the Health Department.
Nearly 19,000 unaccompanied migrant children entered the U.S. border custody in March — an all time high.
Follow Annaliese Levy on Twitter @AnnalieseLevy
“No city should be left to handle a national humanitarian crisis largely on its own, and without the significant and timely support we need from Washington, D.C., today’s budget will only be the beginning,” said New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams about his decision to make budget cuts as a result of the overwhelming migrant crisis.
However, those who will suffer from budget cuts to the city’s services to offset the cost of dealing with the ever-increasing number of migrants are those that are in place to make the city better.
“The cuts will see police freeze hiring and bring the total number of police officers below 30,000. It would further slash the education budget by $1 billion over two years and affect a litany of other agencies” reports Just The News.
Albeit, Adams admitted: “In all my time in government, this is probably one of the most painful exercises I’ve gone through.” More than 110,000 migrants have arrived in New York City over the past year, including roughly 13,000 sent from Texas by GOP Governor Greg Abbott as part of his ongoing bussing plan to send new arrivals to the U.S. to sanctuary cities.
However, similar to other leaders of sanctuary cities, Adams is unwilling to put his money where his mouth is. In September, Adams warned that the crisis would “destroy New York City” and begged the federal government to pay for his mess.
“I’m gonna tell you something, New Yorkers, never in my life have I had a problem that I didn’t see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this,” Adams said at the time. “The federal government needs to do its job. We need the federal government, the Congress members, the Senate and the president to do their job: close the borders,” said Adams’ advisor Ingrid Lewis Martin insisted in early October. “And until you close the borders, you need to come on with a full-on decompression strategy where you can take all of our migrants and move them through our 50 states.”
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