New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) announced that the state has 18,000 job openings for Venezuelan migrants.
The job openings follow the Biden administration granting legal work status to the migrants.
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently extended work authorization to an estimated 472,000 Venezuelan migrants “due to extraordinary and temporary conditions in Venezuela that prevent individuals from safely returning,” according to a statement.
“Individuals may be eligible if they have continuously resided in the United States on or before July 31, 2023, and been continuously physically present in the United States on or before October 3, 2023,” DHS said. “The redesignation of Venezuela for TPS (Venezuela 2023) will allow an estimated 472,000 additional Venezuelan nationals (or individuals having no nationality who last habitually resided in Venezuela) to file an initial TPS [Temporary Protected Status] application.”
Following the statement, Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) announced that the state would provide $38 million for migrant legal services.
“Migrants and asylum seekers came here to work — so let’s put them to work,” Governor Hochul said in a news release. “Right now, we have a migrant crisis and a workforce crisis. By connecting work-eligible individuals with jobs and opportunity in New York, we can solve them both and secure a brighter future for all New Yorkers.”
New York previously led a “robust outreach effort to identify business needs and assess asylum seekers and migrants’ skills and expertise,” the news release noted.
Reporting from The Blaze:
Approximately 24% of the job openings are in the accommodation and food services industry, 21% in health care and social assistance, 10% in manufacturing, 8% in administrative support, and 7% in other industries. The state has identified 9,801 job openings in New York City, 2,896 in Hudson Valley, 1,521 in western New York, and 1,294 in Long Island. ... Hochul aims to pressure the federal government to extend work authorizations to more migrants. "I am hopeful and continue to press Washington and Congress to open up those work authorizations to more people because again, the Venezuelans is a good start, but it's not going to take care of the people who come in from Mauritania, and Congo, and other parts of South America, Central America, West Africa," she said. "We have people from Iraq and Afghanistan coming, people from Russia are coming, because everyone's finding their ways to that southern border. And that's where we need to have more thoughtful controls at that as well."
