According to a report by the New York Post, New York City Mayor Eric Adams plans to send as many as a hundred migrants to college in upstate New York in Sullivan County. The program—which would include room, board, and tuition for at least 12 months—would cost more than a million dollars to tax payers in its first year based on current prices at the institutions involved (SUNY Sullivan and The Center for Discovery). The pilot program is to be overseen by Adams’ new Office of Asylum Seeker Operations. The reaction from New York Republicans has not been kind.
“Mayor Adams is making a permanent welfare system for illegal immigrants in New York State,” upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik, the House Republican Conference chair, stated.
City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) said, “I guess this is about as clear as we can get that the Biden administration is not helping us at all — and that it’s simply on us to set these people up for the rest of their lives in the US.”
Adams has made it a priority of his administration to resettle the wave of migrants that have come to New York City. His college plan is a clear example of why the the last few years have been a breaking point at the southern border.
The fatal flaw of his policy from a political standpoint, however, is that nobody will ever support this plan in earnest. College costs are astronomical in this country, even for economically comfortable middle class families. So if non-citizens are given the rare opportunity of a free ride, some might feel that not only is this a misallocation of funds, but it is a disservice to citizens who pay for college.
While this isn’t an all-encompassing welfare state for migrants, there’s a suggestion of unfairness that is impossible to ignore. If Adams created a program to pay for costs of college across the board, and could allow both citizens and migrants to benefit from paid-for aspects of education, then maybe this plan would fly.
But for now, Adams’ current policy won’t outlast him.
