New York City is built on immigration. Over twelve million immigrants arrived through Ellis Island from 1892-1954; today, immigrants make up forty percent of the city population. New York City’s physical and cultural acceptance of immigrants is largely due to the city’s sanctuary laws and policies. In the 1980s, Mayor Edward I. Koch issued an executive order prohibiting city agencies from sharing information about immigrants with federal authorities except if they were suspected of criminal activity. From then on, the city faced aggressive federal hurdles until Mayor Bill Deblasio signed laws limiting city jails and law enforcement’s cooperation with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2014. The city’s controversial sanctuary policies remain at the center of the ongoing national immigration discussion.

A combination of domestic policy changes after the first Trump administration and COVID-19 and international turmoil led to a surge of migrants crossing the US southern border. Since 2022, more than 210,000 migrants have settled in New York City. The nationwide growth of immigration reignited anti-immigration sentiments and debate over border policies. Since his inauguration in January, Trump has issued several anti-immigration executive orders and threatened to revoke funding from cities and states that do not cooperate. Most recently, Trump clawed back $80 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding from the city over his disapproval of its use to house migrants. President Donald Trump’s efforts to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities are catastrophic and ineffective at combating the problem at hand. Critics overestimate the economic losses and criminal activity they associate with migrants and overlook their contributions.

Mass deportation is expensive, unrealistic, and a human rights violation. Considering the financial benefits of immigration, deportation plans are reductive to the city and country’s economic development. The federal government should invest in integrating immigrants into US sanctuary cities by expanding parole programs to include automatic work authorization.

Parole programs and work authorization are a more effective approach to handling immigration in sanctuary cities. Both parole programs and Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) can permit non-citizens to live and work in the United States, but parole is temporary humanitarian admission for noncitizens who are otherwise inadmissible to enter the country. EADs are work permits that authorize non-citizens to work legally in the United States while their immigration status is under review. Parolees may be eligible for an EAD, but the two programs are generally independent. 

It would be beneficial to not only extend the scope and time frame of parole programs but also to include automatic work authorization within the program to expedite the employment process for migrants. If the government grants undocumented migrants legal employment opportunities, they generate more revenue and rely less on social assistance. Currently, procuring work authorization can be a lengthy procedure, ranging anywhere from two to fifteen months. By the time one receives authorization, their parole period could be coming to an end. To correct current inefficiencies and maximize the full potential of parole programs, parolees should be automatically authorized to work legally.

The Biden administration saw remarkable success through the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) humanitarian parole program; the adjudication process was quicker, fewer migrants from those countries illegally crossed the border, and parolees were automatically eligible to apply for an EAD. The plan had shortcomings but provided a viable framework for future policy development. However, the Trump administration issued an executive order ending all categorical parole programs, citing that they are incompatible with their immigration agenda.

Critics overlook that immigration sustains both the New York and national economy.  Migrants generate immense tax revenue, worker productivity, and labor-supply security that outweigh their costs. In New York State alone, undocumented immigrants paid $3.1 billion in taxes. Undocumented immigrants pay into national welfare services like Social Security and Medicaid despite not receiving those benefits.

Aside from pure tax revenue, immigration is crucial to the city’s economic survival because of labor force contributions. Undocumented immigrants have a higher employment rate than native-born Americans, and seventy percent of undocumented employees work in essential industries. Deporting foreign-born workers could exacerbate the city’s labor shortage because immigrants are overrepresented in the workforce. For example, the City Council recently passed the mayor’s “City of Yes” housing opportunity proposal, which projects 80,000 new housing units across the city in fifteen years. The city is facing one of the worst housing shortages in decades, and ambitious development projects require a reliable source of construction workers—an industry dependent on foreign-born labor. Programs that allow migrants to seek legal employment in New York City outweigh short-term expenses because they are investments in the city’s future. Although the rate of immigration and the amount of money the city spent is not sustainable, the migrant-entry rate is trending downward along with subsequent costs. Arresting and detaining the migrants currently living in the city does not get the city’s money back that they already spent on supporting immigrants and does not stop more from continuing to settle there. If anything, the city and federal government would have to spend even more money on mass deportation while simultaneously attempting to regulate new immigration.

With parole programs, New York City would still receive the benefits from immigration without the unpredictable and burdensome costs. The city has spent around seven billion dollars on housing and other social services for migrants since 2023. City agencies were overflowing, backlogged, and unequipped to handle the spontaneous rise in asylum seekers. Parolees are more likely to be self-sufficient or rely on community networks than tax-sponsored welfare programs because of the program’s sponsorship requirement. A US resident must sponsor parole migrants and prove they have sufficient means to support parolees so that they depend more on their sponsor than government assistance.

Parole programs also reduce unauthorized immigration, regulating the flow of migrants into sanctuary cities and other municipalities. The most essential component of migrant integration, though, is work authorization. Work authorization helps migrants and citizens alike; legal employment provides migrants with an opportunity to adapt to their community, develop language skills, and contribute more to the economy. The approximate earning potential of asylum seekers in New York City shelters is over $382 million and could rise to over $470 million if they were all to get work authorization. Legal employment allows migrants to earn more and gain financial independence, relieving city government and taxpayers.

The long-term benefits of immigration are the most crucial to the city and nation’s economic development. The United States’ birth rate has been declining since 2007, meaning that the working-age population (ages 25-54) will begin to fall; since 2013, the native-born working-age population has remained flat, while the foreign-born population grew by about five million in the same period. The US needs a secure workforce to adapt to a dynamic global market and maintain its economic prowess. In addition to the labor force, the United States needs foreign-born workers to offset the depletion of social security benefits. The country’s retirees outnumber the working population, which will empty the social security fund by 2033. The costs of large-scale deportation initiatives alone are massive, but the accompanying drop in tax revenue, productivity, and labor participation would devastate the New York and national economies. Experts project that large-scale deportation could result in a $40 billion loss in GDP in New York State in the next ten years. There is little purpose in spending billions to deport the migrants who have already settled in the city; it is more important to focus on integrating migrants and imposing regulatory policies to create sustainable immigration.

Others who criticize New York’s sanctuary laws are more averse to the public safety costs associated with immigration. On Feb. 22, 2024, an undocumented immigrant murdered Laken Riley, a young nursing student in Georgia. The tragedy became a rallying cry for the anti-immigration movement, amplifying the fear and misinformation that had already existed in the national conversation. Anti-immigration proponents blamed former President Joe Biden’s “open-border” policies for her death. During the second 2024 presidential debate, President Trump warned the American people that Haitian immigrants were eating their pets—a claim that he was never able to substantiate. The mainstream sensationalization of migrant crime has led to a widespread conflation of illegal immigration with increased crime rates and gang activity. In reality, there is no evidence proving undocumented immigrants are more prone to committing violent crimes. Contrarily, undocumented immigrants have a lower crime rate than US citizens. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, in the four New York City precincts that have large migrant shelters, there is no consistent trend in crime rates. Moreover, the city’s crime rate has remained relatively flat since 2022, when immigration surged. There are inevitable instances of migrant crime in shelters and across the city, but it is not common enough to warrant altering city sanctuary laws, which would generate other unintended consequences.

Data shows that cities that are more hostile toward immigrants have higher crime rates than sanctuary cities. On average, 35.5 fewer crimes are committed per 10,000 people in counties with sanctuary policies than those without. Harsh deportation policies create more fear and distrust of law enforcement, which poses negative ramifications for public safety. People are less likely to report crimes, provide information to police officers, or cooperate with investigations when they fear law enforcement. Others argue that the city’s sanctuary laws allow unauthorized migrants to commit crimes without repercussions. New York City’s sanctuary laws prohibit the NYPD from adhering to ICE’s detention orders without a judicial warrant, but the city can pursue prosecution against anyone regardless of immigration status. President Trump modified ICE procedure to classify anyone with unlawful status as high-priority for arrest and detention, not only migrants with criminal records. If the city changes its sanctuary status, it could result in the deportation of thousands of benign and working migrants who contribute to the city. Officials must vet migrants who apply for parole entry to prove they do not pose any national security threat or have a prior criminal history. The rhetoric surrounding migrant crime is disproportionate to the real scope of the issue, but expanding parole is a viable solution to the concern.

Patterns of crime are inconsistent with sanctuary laws and the unauthorized migrant demographic themselves. Most claims about rampant migrant crime are either unsubstantiated or disproven by existing research and do not warrant the 175 billion dollars Trump slated to implement his deportation agenda. Creating pathways to citizenship for undocumented migrants regulates the volume, financial responsibilities, and public safety costs associated with immigration while maximizing its benefits. The direct costs of deportation and the long-term losses to the country’s labor force, tax revenue, and GDP make President Trump’s plan to launch the “largest deportation operation in American history” counterintuitive.