AZ Senator Questions NY Receiving Roughly Double Immigration Funding

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) — who left the Democrat Party last year to become an independent — has called out her former boss, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, after it was revealed that New York would be receiving roughly double the amount of funding for the burdens caused by illegal aliens than the border state of Arizona.

While speaking to first responders in the border city of Yuma, Sinema responded to the news that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Shelter Services Program plans to send New York a total of roughly $134.6 million — while Arizona will only receive around $69.3 million, according to The Daily Mail.

According to FEMA, “The Shelter and Services Program provides funds to non-federal entities that provide sheltering and other eligible services to noncitizen migrants who have been encountered by the Department of Homeland Security and released from custody while awaiting the outcome of their immigration proceedings. The intent is to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the safe, orderly, and humane release of noncitizen migrants from short-term holding facilities.”

“Why is the money going to New York, and who’s sending it?” Sinema was asked during the first responders’ roundtable.

“My staff is gonna be really upset but I’m gonna tell you the truth here. The reason the money is going to New York is because the Speaker of the House is from New York and the leader of the United States Senate is from New York,” she responded, likely referring to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who is the minority party’s equivalent to House Speaker, and Schumer. “That is how a bunch of money went to New York.”

“Look, this is something I fought for,” Sinema continued. “When I fought really hard to ensure that this money got included in the omnibus budget in December of last year… we fought really hard to get this in, the money was intended — and there’s language that was put in the law that said that it should be going for decompression of the border. The fact that a yeoman’s amount of this money went to New York City in my opinion is wrong because they are not a border state, and they are not facing the kind of pressure that we are facing here.”

She went on to blast people for trying to compare the issues non-border states are facing due to the massive influx of illegal aliens to the issues that border states face on a daily basis.

“So when I hear from folks in other parts of the country who say, ‘Oh, it’s hard, our shelters are overwhelmed,’ yeah, come live a day in the life of Yuma, Summerton, or San Luis. Just one day,” Sinema declared.

“I am livid that the administration is sending money to a part of the country that while it has a lot of folks showing up in their shelter, they don’t have folks wandering the streets of our small towns and communities or facing heat exhaustion, showing up without basics like formula,” she added.

“People will come across the border with chicken pox. What we’re experiencing here in Arizona is matched only by what folks are experiencing in southern Texas. Those are the two communities that are experiencing this crisis. The rest of the country’s seeing some elements of it, but we are here facing the brunt. And it is wrong and unfair that that SSP money is going to places other than South Texas and South Arizona,” Sinema concluded.