More than 100 business leaders in New York City have penned an open letter calling on President Joe Biden to ‘take immediate action to better control the border’ and speed up the asylum and work authorization process for migrants.

The letter published on Monday was addressed to ‘President Biden and Congressional Leaders’ and backed New York Governor Kathy Hochul‘s recent plea for more federal resources to respond to the migrant influx. 

The letter comes as New York City has been overrun with 100,000 migrants, filling shelters and leaving many to sleep on the sidewalks throughout Manhattan.  

‘The New York business community is deeply concerned about the humanitarian crisis that has resulted from the continued flow of asylum-seekers into our country,’ the letter stated.

‘The situation is overwhelming the resources not only of the border region but of city and state governments across the nation,’ it added, noting that New York City alone has received more than 100,000 migrants whose ultimate asylum and work status remains unclear.

A White House official responded in a statement to DailyMail.com, saying the Biden administration ‘has led the largest expansion of lawful pathways to immigration in decades,’ and is ‘committed to building a humane, safe, and orderly immigration system’. 

Scroll down for the full letter 

Signatories of the recent open letter included Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jaime Dimon, Jeff Gennette of Macy’s and Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon. 

The letter backed Hochul’s recent plea for Biden to take urgent action to help her state absorb a surge of international migrants who have strained New York’s resources and filled homeless shelters.

‘In addition, there is a compelling need for expedited processing of asylum applications and work permits for those who meet federal eligibility standards,’ the letter added. 

‘Immigration policies and control of our country’s border are clearly a federal responsibility; state and local governments have no standing in this matter,’ the letter noted.

The White House official told DailyMail.com: ‘Those who arrive through those lawful pathways are immediately eligible to request an employment authorization document.’

The official noted the current process for asylum applications and employment authorization is set by law, which can only be changed by Congress, and noted: ‘The law establishes a 180-day waiting period to obtain a work authorization.’ 

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told DailyMail.com that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had recently tasked ‘an expert team’ with assessing New York City’s migrant operations.

‘The team was impressed with the exceptional efforts by New York officials under the ongoing strain of accepting a large number of migrants and has provided recommendations for improvements, including data collection, case management, and increased communication with migrants on work authorizations,’ the spokesperson said. 

A federal official said the Biden administration had provided New York access to an FAA hangar at John F. Kennedy International Airport, which is being used to shelter 800 single males.

Eleven other federal sites across New York state are being reviewed as potential locations to shelter migrants, the person said. 

The migrant humanitarian crisis in New York, long seen as friendly to immigrants, is increasingly driving a wedge between local elected Democrats and the Biden administration. 

In a rare public address last week, Hochul said she sent the president a letter asking him to expedite work permits for migrants and provide financial resources to help care for the estimated 100,000 asylum seekers who have come to the state in the last year, mostly to New York City.

‘The reality is that we’ve managed thus far without substantive support from Washington, and despite the fact that this is a national, and indeed an inherently federal issue,’ Hochul said in a speech delivered in Albany. ‘But New York has shouldered this burden for far too long.’

The public plea came after months of private requests to the White House.

The central request of the governor’s letter was for the president to speed up the months-long bureaucratic process under which migrants can obtain work permits, and earn enough money to get off of public assistance.

‘Let them work,’ Hochul said, in remarks directed at the White House.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, also a Democrat, has repeatedly made an identical demand.

New York has always prided itself on its ability to absorb waves of immigrants, but it has struggled to handle the thousands who have come over the past year, many on buses paid for by the state of Texas to rid itself of people entering the US across the southern border.

New York Democrats initially blamed Republican governors of southern states – such as Texas’ Greg Abbott and Florida’s Ron DeSantis – for the crisis, but have increasingly sought to characterize it is a national problem that should be solved by the federal government.

The situation has also provided Republicans in the state with a new political front from which to attack Democrats after an election year where the GOP made gains by criticizing liberals as slow to respond to concerns over crime.

‘Kathy Hochul´s solution after twiddling her thumbs after so many months is to write a strongly worded letter to Joe Biden? Come on, it´s not serious,’ said David Laska, New York Republican Party spokesperson.

The situation has also created tension between Democrats within the state. 

As New York City’s homeless shelter system became overwhelmed, and the cost of housing migrants in hotels and temporary shelters mounted, Adams began organizing bus trips of his own to take migrants to other parts of the state, to the frustration of officials in those communities.

Lawyers for Hochul and Adams have sparred in court over how best to house and expend resources to care for the migrants.

The state has earmarked up to $1.5 billion for its migrant response. Hochul asked Biden for financial assistance to help cover those costs and a projected $4.5 billion needed next year. 

In addition, the governor requested that the city and state be allowed to use federally-owned properties to house migrants.

New York City shelters have been at near capacity and officials have scrambled to set up temporary housing in hotels, recreational centers, school gyms and a hospital parking lot. The city is legally obligated to find shelter for anyone needing it.

Republicans are already seeing the response to this wave of migrants as an opportunity for campaigning in the 2024 election.

‘New Yorkers won’t forget what happened on Kathy Hochul’s watch,’ Laska said. 

‘They won’t forget that communities from all over the state have been strained beyond their ability to handle this influx of migrants and the real solution is to close the border.’

The city’s migrant situation has also led to clashes, such as on Sunday when protestors and counter-protestors battled outside Adams’ Gracie Mansion. 

 About half of the 100 people gathered were espousing messages demanding the shelters stop and the migrants be sent away, while others were counter-protesters who also denounced what they called the ‘white supremacist NYPD.’

Germany reportedly wants the EU to adopt a Rwanda-style migrant system with asylum seekers being deported – similar to Britain’s proposed scheme.

Germany is playing a ‘leading role’ in advocating for a deal with a non-EU state to filter out migrants who do not have much chance of being granted asylum, Die Welt newspaper reported.

Rwanda and Niger are both being considered as partner countries and would be compensated financially for the deal, according to the report.

While Austria and Hungary want asylum seekers to be deported to an African partner country regardless of the country that they came from, Germany is said to want to restrict this process to people who have spent time in the nations they would be exported to, while their application is weighed up.

Backbenchers in the coalition fear that the deal is aimed at deterring refugees from coming to Europe.

This week, 24 MPs from Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens signed a letter urging Berlin to stand up for the rights of migrants during the negotiations.

Scholz and interior minister Nancy Faeser are determined to push through a deal, given the increasing numbers of refugee arrivals.

Faeser said: ‘If we fail today or in the next 14 days, it would be a bad signal that would lead to countries isolating themselves. I don’t want that, I want to keep the borders open.’

‘For us in Germany human rights standards are at the forefront, and I will fight hard for that today,’ she added.

The Social Democrats, the biggest party in the coalition with the Greens and Free Democrats, are prepared to put their weight behind changes that would see migrants being detained at the EU’s external borders.

The number of asylum applications in Germany this year has already hit 130,000 and local governments say they have run out of space to hold the new arrivals.

In May, Scholz announced that he would break with the liberal policies he inherited from Angela Merkel and look to reduce numbers using tighter border controls and more money for Frontex, the EU’s border control agency. 

This has led to worries that Scholz could shun fair asylum processes in order to reduce numbers.

The letter from backbenchers stated: ‘We share many people’s concerns that the proposals for a new Common European Asylum System could weaken the right to asylum.’

Separately, 730 Green party members have signed a letter demanding that their leadership change direction.

They said that they were ‘shocked’ by the proposals being negotiated in Brussels, which aim to put in place a new system based on ‘deterrence and exclusion’.

In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has ordered ministers to begin migrant deportation flights to Rwanda within days of the scheme clearings its legal hurdles.

In a highly unusual move, Sunak has established a Covid-style Cabinet committee to ensure that the Rwanda scheme can ‘hit the ground running’ immediately.

The committee, which has been in place for a month, is already meeting twice a week to ensure there are no barriers to deportation flights beginning as soon as the Illegal Migration Bill clears Parliament, which is likely to be in September.

One Cabinet source described the preparations for the first flight as ‘extraordinary’.

‘No stone is being left unturned to make sure this goes smoothly,’ the source said.

‘There is really no precedent for a Prime Minister to lead a committee of this sort on the implementation of a Bill has that has not even passed.

‘That legislation will effectively ban Channel crossings. The expectation is it will pass in September and you will see flights beginning within days.

‘People arriving on small boats will be detained on barges for a day or so and then put on a plane to Rwanda or another safe country. Some of them may not even set foot on land.

‘To do that we have to have everything in place – the accommodation, the transport, the legal advice. All of that is underway now to make sure things can happen immediately.

‘As soon as you start getting the first flights to Rwanda you will start to see a deterrent effect. Officials won’t accept it – ministers have had to push this all the way – but the PM is convinced.’

The Court of Appeal is expected to rule this month on legal challenges to the scheme, after the High Court ruled in December that it is lawful.

A Home Office source confirmed the scheme will not begin until all legal appeals in the UK have been exhausted.

The PM has suggested he is willing to use the Parliament Act to overrule the Lords, but this would delay the legislation until next year.