Fox Business host Stuart Varney confronted GOP New York Representative Elise Stefanik on Friday over Republicans' "impossible" plan to address illegal immigration.
New York City has seen an influx of asylum-seeking migrants over the past months and has struggled to find housing and cater to their needs as they came into the only major city in the United States with a "right to shelter" law.
The issue has been exacerbated by GOP-led states such as Texas and Florida that have transported migrants crossing the border from Mexico to Democratic-led cities in the north. The city also embraced a surge in migrants as Title 42 ended in May.
The policy allowed the denial of asylum seekers due to the COVID-19 public health emergency and it was used to send away about 2.5 million migrants between March 2020 and November 2022.
A 2020 report by the American Immigration Council showed that 4.4 million immigrants made up 23 percent of New York's population in 2018. New York had 725,000 undocumented immigrants by 2016, who made up 15 percent of the immigrant population and 4 percent of the state population at the time.
Meanwhile, a 2018 New York City report showed that the city was able to accommodate 3.1 million immigrants, the largest in the city's history at the time, and had an estimated 560,000 undocumented migrants.
Varney on Friday had a heated exchange with Stefanik about what he called an "impossible" GOP plan to address the recent surge in the number of migrants in New York. During her interview on Fox Business, Stefanik deflected from directly answering a question about what should be done with the increasing number of immigrants in New York.
"I just want to know what you are going to do with the 5 million we got!" -- Stuart Varney grills Elise Stefanik about her lack of constructive solutions to immigration issues pic.twitter.com/r8TnSnCVXT
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 16, 2023
The Republican went on to speak about the GOP's border security bill, which was passed in the House last month. The bill was meant to increase funding for border agents, resume construction of the wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, and reinstate some of Trump's former immigration policies.
However, Varney argued that this bill could prevent an influx of undocumented immigrants in the future and pressed Stefanik to talk about a possible solution for the current New York migrant issue.
"Republicans' answer to the question is we need to secure the border, then we can strengthen our legal immigration system, but we should not be rewarding illegals for pouring into this country. The American people do not support that," she said.
U.S. officials processed over 10,000 migrants arriving at the border every day over the course of a week last month, which is up from about 5,000 in March, the BBC reported. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has also been holding up to 28,000 migrants at its facilities, which exceeds its capacity limits, two federal officials previously told Reuters.
Newsweek reached out to Rep. Elise Stefanik through her website for comment.
