The One Benefit Illegal Migrants in New York are Turning Down: A Ticket Out of Town
Last November, a team of FAIR researchers headed to New York City to assess and document the impact of the illegal immigration crisis that Mayor Eric Adams said threatened to “destroy” the city. At the time, the city had recently set up a travel office offering migrants free tickets to just about any destination they wanted to go, so long as they left town.
One of the places the team visited was that travel office, located in the East Village. FAIR’s Communication Manager, Joey Chester, reported, “[W]hen we showed up at 11:00 am, we did not find a single person waiting to get into the center. I thought we’d come too late, but I found a sign saying the center opened at 9:00 am. Apparently, the migrants don’t want to leave a self-declared sanctuary city, which also guarantees shelter to anyone who needs it.”
Four months later, it is clear that the FAIR team didn’t just happen to show up on a slow day. The Gothamist, using the Freedom of Information Act, confirms that just about every day is a slow day at the city’s ticket office. According to their findings, only about 2 percent of adult migrants who time-out of their taxpayer-funded stays at city-run shelters or local hotels avail themselves of the city’s offer of taxpayer-funded travel to other places around the country. In fact, far more migrants – 15 percent of those who use up their allotted 30-day stays in shelters or hotels – are granted extensions.
Instead, the migrants prefer to stick it out while they wait the required 180 days to get federal work authorization (not that it matters, because many are working anyway). That wait would be the same no matter where they went. But in New York City, there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In addition to strictly enforced sanctuary policies that protect illegal aliens, even if they are arrested for serious offenses, the city provides an array of benefits and service to them and has set up websites that advertise these freebies to the migrants.
Among the benefits offered are, “Cash Assistance [that] provides you with some money twice a month so you can buy things you need, like toiletries and clothes.” Other benefits include “help with housing, childcare, food, clothing” and other services. Also, if you have kids, or claim to be under 19 years of age (and it’s hard to verify because, this case, the term undocumented really applies) “low income families can get free health insurance regardless of their immigration status.” The list goes on. Given all that New York City is prepared to offer to people who are violating our immigration laws or abusing our asylum system, the only real surprise is that 2 percent are choosing to go elsewhere.
Eighty-five years ago, Sheridan Whiteside was a fictional character in the Broadway production of The Man Who Came to Dinner. In 2024, New Yorkers – due in large part to their city’s own policies – find themselves hosting some 175,000 men, women and children who came to dinner – and refuse to leave.