NYC Official: Not Getting into ‘Politics’ of Criticism of our Sanctuary Status — ‘There’s Opportunity’ in Migrant Surge

On Thursday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports,” New York City Emergency Management Commissioner Zachary Iscol stated that the city isn’t “going to participate in the politics or the palace intrigue” over whether it should deal with the influx of migrants because it’s a sanctuary city and that in the surge of migrants, “there’s opportunity.”

Host Elizabeth Vargas asked, “And how do you respond to people like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) who says, you guys up there, the right to — the sanctuary city, right-to-shelter city, you’re the ones, you liberals passed this policy, you deal with it?”

Iscol responded, “So, I think that there’s a lot of conflation of who is to blame for this, and there’s a lot of finger-pointing. And I will leave it to the politicians to point fingers. The mayor has been very clear that we’ve got a crisis, we need to focus on addressing that crisis, and we’re not going to participate in the politics or the palace intrigue. We need to work together to solve this problem.”

He added, “You asked this question, why are people coming? Forced migration is going to be one of the great challenges of the 21st century…and, in that forced migration, there’s opportunity. Every time this country has dealt with forced migration — go back to World War II, European refugees, 1.8 million. Vietnamese boat people, Cubans, Haitians, Soviet Jews — the federal government has run a process to relocate people around the country, get them working, and when it’s done that, it’s been a huge investment in the American economy and society.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett