CAMPAIGN ON NY MIGRATION CRISIS

AN Indian-American lawmaker is leading a campaign in New York calling on President Joe Biden to deal with the influx of migrants.

Jenifer Rajkumar, who represents the 38^th District in the New York State Assembly, has so far attracted the signatures of 54 elected officials on the issue.

The officials have signed a petition calling on President Biden to expedite the delivery of work permits and to generally undertake an urgent response to the crisis on the southern border.

Ms. Rajkumar and her colleagues want the declaration of a federal state of emergency, speeding up of work authorisation, and an organised strategy to “fairly distribute newcomers across the country.”

They are also calling for additional federal funding for New York City to foot the cost of sheltering, feeding and supporting more than 800,000 asylum seekers.

She stated that while “New Yorkers take pride in welcoming migrants,” the “unstructured state of immigration policy and response needs to end.”

Ms. Rajkumar and her fellow elected officials pleaded for the White House to “step in and take leadership over the influx of asylum seekers.”

She called the migrant issue “one of the greatest crises New York City has ever had.”

The officials asked Biden to “turn the crisis into opportunity,” which, they stated, “can become one of our history’s greatest success stories.”

Ms. Rajkumar, 40, is the daughter of Indian migrants and lives in Queens.

She recently successfully piloted a move for New York schools to observe the annual festival of Divali.