In response to the Biden border crisis, New York City has spent over $5 billion. Since mid-2022, approximately 200,000 migrants have landed in the city seeking aid.
The city is the hardest hit in the country as migrants seek to resettle in a friendly environment while they navigate court proceedings that will take years to conclude. The city has housed, fed, and clothed over 212,000 migrants who entered the country illegally by crossing the southern border.
According to data released on Wednesday by the NYC Humanitarian Crisis Tracker, the five boroughs responded to the migrant inflow with $4.8 billion over the July through June fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
Since July 1, the first six weeks of fiscal 2025, the city has probably spent more than $112 million, according to a New York Post investigation published Wednesday morning. That would raise the overall cost of spending to almost $5 billion.
Compared to 2023, when the city spent $1.45 billion, in 2024 it spent more than twice as much, or $3.43 billion. During the two-year period, NYC spent around $2 billion on housing, rent, and “initial outfitting.”
After $488 million for information technology and administrative expenses, services and materials brought in an additional $1.9 billion. The largest expense was $345 million for food, while the second-highest was $124 million for medical.
The largest spenders in the municipal government are the NYC Department of Health and Hospitals and the NYC Dept. of Homeless Services, with a combined spending of around $4 billion.
Due to a lack of room in homeless shelters, the city has established more than 200 makeshift shelters to host migrants. Additionally, it invested tens of millions of dollars to acquire a number of properties, including the Roosevelt Hotel, Springhill Suites by Marriott, and City View Inn.
The Right to Shelter statute, which provided beds to anyone in need, was in effect when the city first opened for business. Subsequently, it conceded and set time limits for those living in homes provided by the city.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) decided to give migrant workers in Texas free bus transportation to New York City in order to relieve the strain on public transit systems during the mass crossings and releases into border communities in Texas, which contributed to the surge of migrants from the border.
Roughly one in five of the 212,000 migrants who have arrived in NYC since April 2022 have come from Texas via bus. Some have traveled by rail, bus, or plane into the city.
In September of last year, Republican Joseph Borelli, the minority leader of the NY City Council, stated in testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee that the city had projected spending $12 billion over the course of three years at that time.
Since reaching a peak in December of last year, the number of migrants crossing the southern border has dramatically decreased. Back then, agents from the Border Patrol detained around 250,000 people for attempting to enter the US illegally from Mexico.
The Washington Examiner received early statistics in July that showed there were less than 60,000 migrant arrests. The decline in crossings has resulted in fewer new immigrants seeking assistance in American cities.
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