As Jazz pointed out this morning, President Biden has finally given Mayor Adams something he has been asking for over the past year. Venezuelans who apply for asylum in the US will now be allowed to get work permits almost immediately. Gov. Kathy Hochul was quick to praise the president’s actions but she also made it clear that even with that change New York has no more room for migrants.

Hochul told NY1 that granting temporary protected status to and expediting work permits for thousands of Venezuelans who entered the US before July 31 is “an important first step” in getting expedited work status for all migrants…

“We have to let people know that if you’re thinking of coming to New York, we are truly out of space,” she said.

“The mayor has done an extraordinary job managing this crisis situation. We have been partners in helping him, but there must be other cities that do not have upwards of 125,000 people, over 60,000 in shelters, that can handle the volume easier in other states.”

She went on to say, “We have been generous, we have been humanitarian in our response. That’s who we are. But also, we’re at capacity.

Hochul also appeared on CNN where she was asked why it took the president so long to respond to New York’s pleas to allow migrants to work, Hochul replied, “There’s a lot of competing interests. You have to be certain that you’re not going to support a policy that’s going to draw more people because places like New York really are at capacity.

“We have large hearts. We want to be generous and supportive to people who are experiencing humanitarian crisis, but there is a limit to what we can do. So the fear would probably be—and I don’t want to speak for them—but you have to ensure that we can also have controls at the border and not welcome even more people to come who think they’re going to come for the jobs.”

She added, “It really does have to slow down at the border because the volume keeps growing and growing.” She’s absolutely right about that.

BREAKING: Per CBP sources, in the last 24 hours alone, over 10,000 migrants were encountered at the border, bringing us back to the all time record high levels we last saw in May before the end of Title 42. 8,500+ were Border Patrol apprehensions, 1,600+ at CBP ports of entry.

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) September 21, 2023

Gov. Hochul is also right that you have to make sure your actions don’t make the problem worse, but in this case I’m not sure the Biden administration has managed to do that. Many of these people are economic migrants fleeing the collapse of their country’s economy under a socialist dictator. Granting them protected status and work visas might benefit New York in the short run by allowing them to clear out some of the shelters, but you can probably guess how this action is going to be reported in South America and Central America. The message that gets back to those folks may not be that it’s too late to claim this new status and right to work. It may be that half a million people were just told they could quickly get on the payroll. And that’s a message that will certainly appeal to a lot more economic migrants.

Also, let’s be honest about this. This is probably just the start. In fact, Mayor Adams has already called in to a local news show saying this would impact just 15,000 of the 60,000 people now in shelters. He was then asked why the announcement was limited to Venezuelans. Mayor Adams replied, “I am hoping that this is the start of looking at all of these countries that are coming into New York City…I believe this should be the first step at looking at all these countries…” So Adams is already calling for this to be expanded, not just to other nationalities but to Venezuelans who came in after July 31. He sees this as a good first step and I’m sure many of the thousands of migrants agree with him. Word will travel and more migrants will follow.

Here’s a bit of Gov. Hochul’s appearance on CNN. At the very end of this she’s asked if she would support a change in the New York’s shelter mandate law. She says she would support such a change because that law was intended to help the homeless. “Never was it envisioned that this would be an unlimited, universal right or obligation on the city to have to house literally the entire world,” she said. That sounds sensible to me but maybe NYC should have thought about that before announcing it was a sanctuary city.