What’s Going On with New York’s Migrant Problem?

THE arrival of new migrants has pushed the population of New York City's shelters to record levels and has stretched services past their capacity. Already, the city has 84,526 homeless people, including 27,530 children, the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Yet it’d appear there is no mechanism how to stop the influx. Since tens of thousands of migrants began arriving in the city, Mayor Eric Adams has searched for one place after another to house them.

       A year after, some of the Mayor’s appointees resigned and current officials are still scrambling to house them. News adds that rows of cots inside school gymnasiums are set up, busing some people to the northern suburbs and suspending the normal review process for the opening of new shelters.

       Other media accounts: “The migrant crisis in New York City is reaching a breaking point, with some asylum seekers now being forced to sleep on the streets. In midtown Manhattan, asylum seekers are sleeping on the sidewalks outside the Roosevelt Hotel, which is now a migrant processing center for city shelters.” 🏦🏃🏦

NEW York Times: “Migrant Crisis, a ‘Time Bomb’ for Democrats, Poses Test for Hochul.” / “New York Plans to Convert Parts of Midtown Manhattan to Housing.” Gov. Kathy Hochul’s role in responding to an influx of migrants to New York has put her in an uncomfortable and politically delicate position in recent weeks. In the city, Mayor Eric Adams announced plans to rezone manufacturing areas south of Times Square and allow more office buildings to be converted to housing.

       Meanwhile, the Democratic Party’s loudest mouth in NY, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a.k.a. has other priorities. Such as this: An Instagram video in which she told her 1.5 million followers that “U.S. sunscreens are far behind the rest of the world,” adding, “We deserve better here in the U.S.”

Okay, then. 🗽🤨🗽

OTHER news: “Scathing Letter Reveals Tension Among New York Democrats Over Migrant Crisis.” And adds: “The letter, responding to New York City’s list of demands for state help, said the city had already rebuffed some of the state’s offers and had been slow to aid migrants.” New York has the 2nd biggest federal funding, and hosts the world’s most number of billionaires. What to do? Gov. Hochul, Mayor Adams, and AOC? Blame George Santos maybe? 

       At least the shamed rep from the state’s 3rd congressional district would probably calm New Yorkers down with a stunning revelation that his BFF Bruce Wayne bought some abandoned buildings at Long Island City and acres of land in Hudson to accommodate migrants. Not far-fetched. Lie, that is.  

       Anyhow, we don’t really know what’s up with New York’s leadership, Democrat or Republican. Last I read, Gov. Hochul's hubby benefited from a business deal because of you know why. A year or so ago, she lavished sports-crazy New York with proposals to build new billion$ sports arenas. Meantime, the Manhattan DA looks into Mayor Adams' "circle of support," among other Netflix worthy plotlines. And AOC per The Guardian: “Sunscreen socialism: AOC divides the left with call for better skincare options.” At least, this one is funnier than George, for the time being. 🗽🏃‍♀️🏃

MORE News: “A New York City Migrant Contractor Faces Scrutiny in Sexual Assault Cases.” The city gave DocGo contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to care for migrants. Now it faces problems. Nonstop problems. Gotham City is indeed in a deep, deep funk. Issues, issues. Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams said it costs the city $383 a night per migrant family. It's projected that NYC will spend $3.6 billion a year, but that's only at the current rate. 

       And: “Mayor Adams Says Migrant Influx Will Cost New York City $12 Billion.” And adds: “As newcomers continue to arrive in the hundreds each week, the city increased its estimate for how much it will cost to house them.” Do they nonchalantly cross the border? Nearly 500 migrants enter NYC each day. The city is serving more than 90,000 asylum seekers who have arrived since last spring, on top of more than 54,800 still in the city's care. Absurd. 🗽🏃‍♀️🏃

Photo credits: National Geographic. WGRZ.

China’s Geographical (Trade) Expansionism.

ASSOCIATED Press: “Courts: Florida ban on property purchases by citizens of China and some other countries is challenged." Long before Sinophobia engulfed 21st century or the internet universe, we Filipinos were already thrust on a Chinese world of land acquisitions. One day, they moved in the `hood with a hardware shop and convenience store, next they owned the entire block. These days, they lord over giant malls, the size of a small town, all over the archipelago, and more. But that is the Chinese way, always been. 

        China's expansionism isn't military. But sheer economics. 

        In all, Chinese companies have gained control of 6.48 million hectares of land devoted to agriculture, forestry and mining around the world from 2011 to 2020, mostly in Asia and Africa. That figure dwarfs the combined hectares controlled by the British, Americans, and Japanese. 

       Fact is, China has been buying lands since the 1970s at the early stages of Deng Xiaoping's "open door" policy. The combined area of land purchased or leased by Chinese companies over the past decade is equal to the total land area of Sri Lanka or Lithuania and much larger than acquisitions by their counterparts in the U.S. and other major countries, according to Land Matrix, a European land monitoring organization. 

       For example, Chinese companies are heavily involved in banana cultivation in Myanmar. Banana exports from Myanmar soared 250 times from $1.5 million in 2013 to $370 million in 2020. In the southern Vietnamese province of Binh Phuoc, China's New Hope Liuhe, a leading Chinese livestock company, bought a 75-hectare plot of land developed in 2019. Amid soaring timber prices, a Chinese company, Wan Peng, has been shipping large quantities of timber from Congo to China. Chinese companies are also buying mines. China Minmetals invested $280 million in Tanzania in 2019, and China Non-Ferrous Metal Mining poured $730 million into a mining operation in Guinea in 2020.

       The Chinese land acquisitions within the soy sector in Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia are also widespread. China bought as much as 71 percent of Argentina's soybean production in 2013, and. 4.95 percent of Brazil's the following year. ⛰🏝🇨🇳

MEANWHILE, true. China owns 380,000 acres of land in the U.S. Should that worry Americans? Not really. Chinese-owned lands in the U.S. are far less than what Canada, Netherlands, Italy, the U.K. and Germany, in that order, each own. China is #18 on the list of foreign investors in the United States, believe it or not. 

      But China’s rise — coupled with its geopolitical heft and its strategic goals that are sometimes at odds with Washington’s — has raised questions over who owns this land and how much control the Chinese government has over the ownership. Or is paranoia borned out of historical Sinophobia? Or anti-Chinese sentiment is a fear or dislike of China, Chinese people or Chinese culture. ⛰🏝🇨🇳

Homelessness in America.

NEW York Times: “Federal Policy on Homelessness Becomes New Target of the Right.” And adds: “The approach known as Housing First has long enjoyed bipartisan support. But conservatives are pushing efforts to replace it with programs that put more emphasis on sobriety and employment.” What is wrong with sobriety and employment? Come on, now. That isn’t a “conservative” take but a primal sense of maturity and grownup responsibility. 

       Let’s look at “homelessness” in countries with diverse cultural facts and economic well-being. Iceland, Japan, Thailand, Costa Rica, Chile, and Ghana have the lowest rate of homelessness in the world. 

       According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are around 582,000 Americans experiencing homelessness in 2022. And over 11,000 homeless shelters nationwide. 

       Shelters are not a fact in other countries but lack/shortage of employment yet homelessness isn’t a national crisis or local level issue. In the U.S., drive around, what we see are “We are hiring!” signs. On a larger context, it is so confounding that America has so much money tossed to a war elsewhere while numbers of the homeless in our midst continue to soar. 🚶‍♀️🚶🛖

NEW York Times: “With Pandemic Aid Ending, Vermont’s Homeless Are Forced From Hotels.” Hotels are emptied of about 2,800 homeless people living there as part of a pandemic-era program — and offering them tents — after federal funding ran out. While White House keeps on trumpeting employment highs. Confounding. Meanwhile, more than 200,000 migrants “freely” cross the southern border monthly since Jan 2021. Yet politics seem unable to stop the surge. 

       As the number of homeless citizens spikes in major cities, border breaches seem unabated. In April, there were 211,401 alien encounters along the Southwest Border, up almost 10 percent from the previous month and up nearly 20 percent from April 2021. 

       In FY 2021, a record 122,000 children were taken into U.S. custody without their parents. Why without their parents? Of course, you know why. Yet the issue stays as is. A partisanship theater of murkthrow. 🚶‍♀️🚶🛖