Washington, D.C. is hosting the Annual Conference of Mayors this month. The intent is to talk with other mayors and agree on policies that affect the cities across the United States.
Cities with a population of 30,000 or more attend the annual event. The conference first started in 1932 during the Great Depression to help people find employment as cities were struggling with funding.
Behind closed doors, this year, the mayors will talk about a shared problem - supporting migrants. The mayors will discuss this under the theme “Responding to Influx of Migrants”. What was a southern border issue has now affected other cities across the country.
Customs and Border Patrol announced that over 250,000 migrants crossed the U.S. border in December setting a new record. In FY 2022, there were 2.3 million migrant encounters which also set a new record. The previous year there were 1.7 million migrant encounters.
The Federal government allocated $800 million for cities supporting migrants. The money will be used for shelter, food, transportation, healthcare costs, and Covid-19 testing.
After his recent trip to see the border crisis up front in El Paso, Texas, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said:
“I knew it was time for me, not to try to handle this problem from the city, but to come in to interact with the mayors across the country. This has fallen on our cities. And I am now going to coordinate my mayors across the entire country to say: How do we respond to this directly?”
Cities such as New York City, Denver, and Washington, D.C. have all received migrants from Texas and Arizona that have stressed the budgets of these cities.
Though President Biden issued a new requirement for migrants to enter the country, this will not slow down their arrival.
Florida Mayor Francis Suarez shared some ideas from the conference:
Do you think the mayors will come out of the conference with better ideas to support migrants?