Republican Mayors Tell Congress to Give Biden What He Wants

Republican mayors are joining their Democratic colleagues in their calls for Congress to grant President Joe Biden's request for $1.4 billion for migrants.

More than 100 mayors from the United States Conference of Mayors signed a Tuesday letter to Congress, urging lawmakers to help deliver additional funding to help shelter the influx of migrants who have arrived in the country.

"While we welcome migrants to our cities, we need more help to provide them food, housing, services and access to employment," the letter read. "In many of our cities, both city government agencies and local non-profits are overwhelmed; they simply cannot keep up with the need to provide them this most basic assistance."

Biden has requested more than a billion dollars from Congress to help state and local governments with temporary shelter, food and other services for migrants who have recently been released from Department of Homeland Security custody. The request is part of a larger $105 billion national security package that includes aid to Ukraine and Israel and sets aside $13.6 billion to address immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Aurora, Colorado Mayor Michael Coffman, a Republican, told Newsweek in an email, "I strongly believe that the funding necessary to support Ukraine, Israel, and border security are all critical to our national security."

Coffman is among the half-dozen Republican mayors who signed the letter. Others include Mayors David Holt of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Elizabeth Kautz of Burnsville, Minnesota; Bryan Barnett of Rochester Hills, Michigan; John Giles of Mesa, Arizona; Paul TenHaken of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and John Muns of Plano, Texas.

Holt is the second vice president of the conference. Kautz and Barnett were former presidents of the coalition. A spokesperson for Holt's office told Newsweek he had no further comment but that he was "happy to sign the bipartisan letter."

Newsweek reached out to the White House via email for comment.

The number of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol apprehensions has exceeded 2 million in both the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years. In September 2023 alone, U.S. authorities apprehended more than 200,000 migrants crossing the southern border.

Cities in the U.S. have struggled to absorb the large numbers of asylum seekers who are waiting for their immigration cases to play out, and the issue has become a glaring problem for Biden, who is facing low approval ratings and a tough re-election battle.

Biden's congressional request comes amid pleas from Democratic mayors for the Biden administration to offer federal assistance. But a group of Democratic mayors led by Denver Mayor Mike Johnson have said that the $1.4 billion request is not enough and are asking for $5 billion to help shelter migrants.

"While we are greatly appreciative of the additional federal funding proposed, our city budgets and local taxpayers continue to bear the brunt of this ongoing federal crisis," the mayors wrote in a letter to Biden last week. "Cities have historically absorbed and integrated new migrants with success."

Also signing the November 1 letter were the leaders of the nation's four largest cities, Eric Adams of New York, Karen Bass of Los Angeles, Brandon Johnson of Chicago and Sylvester Turner of Houston. All five of those Democratic mayors also signed Tuesday's letter.

The latest letter also addressed the price tag from the Biden administration, noting that the conference of mayors agreed that local and state governments needed more than the $1.4 billion.

"That funding will be most welcome, but in fact more is badly needed," the letter said. "We specifically urge you to provide that $1.4 billion for SSP grants as a minimum and to find a way to provide considerably more funding than this to make sure that the public and private nonprofit agencies and religious organizations in our cities serving migrants are able to meet the need."