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‘What constitutes a border crisis?’ Sanctuary cities have found out

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Migrants and migrant bedding inside O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.                 

From The Center Square

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Yeah, you liked them when it wasn’t your problem because you’re not a border state. And then when they show up in Chicago and New York, you’re like ‘What the [expletive] are we going to do with these people?’”

In March 2021, the Los Angeles Times published a story with a headline that asked, “What constitutes a border crisis?”

The story quoted then House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy as saying, “There is no other way to claim it than a Biden border crisis.”

Then the LA Times asked, “But is it a crisis?”

Just a month later in April 2021, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio released a statement about his city being a sanctuary city.

“New York City is proud to be a welcoming and inclusive city for immigrants,” de Blasio said at the time.

The debate in the U.S. on migrants took off in April 2022 when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott decided to take a stand against President Joe Biden and what Abbott called an open border policy.

Abbott stated that Biden’s repeal of Title 42 – a pandemic-era policy that allowed the government to quickly expel arriving asylum seekers – had created an “unprecedented surge of illegal aliens” into the country with as many as 18,000 apprehensions a day.

Abbott said that Texas border towns were being overrun by migrants and were overwhelmed. His solution was to bus many of the arriving migrants to sanctuary cities across the U.S.

In August 2022, when the first bus of migrants leaving Texas arrived in New York, Abbott was clear why he had his state paid for the trip. New York had a new mayor by then.

“New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants, who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Eric Adams has boasted about within the sanctuary city,” Abbott stated in a news release. “I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief.”

And just over a year later, New York Gov. Kathleen Hochul was on CNN in September 2023 pleading with immigrants to “go somewhere else.”

How it has played out was not lost on liberal comedian Bill Maher.

“Could everyone just stop the posturing?” Maher said on a July 2023 podcast with Sharon Osbourne. “Don’t pretend that you love migrants so much and then when we send them to you, you don’t like them. You know? You’re full of [expletive]. And we can see that. Yeah, you liked them when it wasn’t your problem because you’re not a border state. And then when they show up in Chicago and New York, you’re like ‘What the [expletive] are we going to do with these people?’”

New York wasn’t the only destination for Abbott’s buses. He also targeted other sanctuary cities, such as Washington, D.C, Chicago and Denver.

The New York Times published an article in July 2023 that had a headline that asked, “Is Texas’ Busing Responsible for the Migrant Crisis Across Cities?”

On June 14, Abbott’s office stated that it had bused 119,200 migrants to six sanctuary cities since August 2022. That included 45,700 migrants to New York City and 36,900 migrants to Chicago since August 2022. There were also 19,200 migrants bused to Denver since May 2023 and 12,500 migrants bused to Washington D.C. since April 2022.

But Abbott wasn’t alone in busing migrants from the border to locations throughout the country. The Democratic-run city of El Paso also bused migrants north.

Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs stated in September 2023 that Arizona was “overwhelmed” by the flow of migrants into her state. Arizona spent $10.5 million transporting 10,247 migrants out of state as of September 2023.

That’s just part of a bigger surge of migrants into the U.S. Since Biden took office in January 2021, about 12 million illegal border crossings have been documented, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data and a compilation of “gotaway” data obtained from border agents by The Center Square. Gotaways is the official CBP term to describe those who illegally crossed the border between ports of entry but who were not apprehended. CBP does not publicly release “gotaway” data.

The increase in migrants has hammered the budgets of sanctuary cities.

Washington, D.C. created an Office of Migrant Services with an initial start-up cost of $10 million in 2022. In 2025, the city budgeted $39 million for that office.

Chicago has spent $299 million on migrants since 2022, according to a March 2024 report by the Illinois Policy Institute, and that does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars state taxpayers have paid for costs such as migrant health care.

New York City Mayor Adams said in August 2023 the migrant crisis may cost his city $12 billion over three years.

The city of Denver stated in April 2024 that the increase in migrants has cost it $63 million.

The cost to taxpayers in the state of Texas was $13.4 billion in 2023, according to the Federation For American Immigration Reform. Only California had a higher cost at $30.9 billion.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation For American Immigration Reform, said Abbott’s busing strategy has worked.

“His busing policy exposed the hypocrisy of many sanctuary jurisdiction politicians who extolled the virtues of mass immigration regardless of its legality, but are not so happy when they actually have to deal with the real impact of large numbers of migrants,” Mehlman said in an email to The Center Square. “So long as it was someone else’s problem, they were happy to virtue signal and criticize others. Once it became their problem, they demanded that Abbott and others stop sending them migrants. For years, these sanctuary proponents claimed that illegal aliens were a benefit to the country, but are now demanding federal assistance to manage to cover their costs, exposing the fact that illegal immigration imposes huge fiscal costs.”

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Economy

Ottawa’s new ‘climate disclosures’ another investment killer

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From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

The Trudeau government has demonstrated consistently that its policies—including higher capital gains taxes and a hostile regulatory environment—are entirely at odds with what investors want to see. Corporate head offices are fleeing Canada and business investment has declined  significantly since the Trudeau Liberals came to power.

According to the Trudeau government’s emissions reduction plan, “putting a price on pollution is widely recognized as the most efficient means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Fair enough, but a reasonable person might wonder why the same politicians who insist a price mechanism (i.e. carbon tax) is the most efficient policy recently announced relatively inefficient measures such “sustainable investment guidelines” and “mandatory climate disclosures” for large private companies.

The government claims that imposing mandatory climate disclosures will “attract more private capital into Canada’s largest corporations and ensure Canadian businesses can continue to effectively compete as the world races towards net-zero.” That is nonsense. How would politicians Ottawa know better than business owners about how their businesses should attract capital? If making climate disclosures were a good way to help businesses attract capital, the businesses that want to attract capital would make such disclosures voluntarily. There would be no need for a government mandate.

The government has not yet launched the regulatory process for the climate disclosures, so we don’t know exactly how onerous it will be, but one thing is for sure—the disclosures will be expensive and unnecessary, imposing useless costs onto businesses and investors without any measurable benefit, further discouraging investment in Canada. Again, if the disclosures were useful and worthwhile to investors, businesses seeking to attract investment would make them voluntarily.

Even the government’s own announcement casts doubt that increasing business investment is the likely outcome of mandatory climate disclosures. While the government says it’s “sending a clear signal to corporate boards and shareholders, at home and around the world, that Canada is their trusted partner for putting private capital to work in the race to net-zero,” most investors are not looking to put private capital to work to combat climate change. Most investors want to put their capital to work to earn a good financial return, after adjusting for the risk of the investment.

This latest announcement should come as no surprise. The Trudeau government has demonstrated consistently that its policies—including higher capital gains taxes and a hostile regulatory environment—are entirely at odds with what investors want to see. Corporate head offices are fleeing Canada and business investment has declined significantly since the Trudeau Liberals came to power. Capital per worker in Canada is declining due to weak business investment since 2015, and new capital per-Canadian worker in 2024 is barely half of what it is in the United States.

It’s also fair to ask, in the face of these onerous polices—where are the environmental benefits? The government says its climate disclosures are needed for Canada to progress to net-zero emissions and “uphold the Paris climate target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,” but its net-zero targets are neither feasible nor realistic and the economics literature does not support the 1.5 degrees target.

Finally, when announcing the new climate disclosures, Trudeau Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said they are an important stepping stone to a cleaner economy, which is a “major economic opportunity.” Yet even the Canada Energy Regulator (a federal agency) projects net-zero policies would reduce real GDP per capita, increase inflation of consumer prices and reduce residential space (in other words, reduce living standards).

A major economic opportunity that will increase business investment? Surely not—mandatory climate disclosures will only further reduce our standard of living and impose useless costs onto business and investors, with the sure effect of reducing investment.

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Business

Premiers fight to lower gas taxes as Trudeau hikes pump costs

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Jay Goldberg 

Thirty-nine hundred dollars – that’s how much the typical two-car Ontario family is spending on gas taxes at the pump this year.

You read that right. That’s not the overall fuel bill. That’s just taxes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau keeps increasing your gas bill, while Premier Doug Ford is lowering it.

Ford’s latest gas tax cut extension is music to taxpayers’ ears. Ford’s 6.4 cent per litre gas tax cut, temporarily introduced in July 2022, is here to stay until at least next June.

Because of the cut, a two-car family has saved more than $1,000 so far. And that’s welcome news for Ontario taxpayers, because Trudeau is planning yet another carbon tax hike next April.

Trudeau has raised the overall tax burden at the pumps every April for the past five years. Next spring, he plans to raise gas taxes by another three cents per litre, bringing the overall gas tax burden for Ontarians to almost 60 cents per litre.

While Trudeau keeps hiking costs for taxpayers at the pumps, premiers of all stripes have been stepping up to the plate to blunt the impact of his punitive carbon tax.

Obviously, Ford has stepped up to the plate and has lowered gas taxes. But he’s not alone.

In Manitoba, NDP Premier Wab Kinew fully suspended the province’s 14 cent per litre gas tax for a year. And in Newfoundland, Liberal Premier Andrew Furey cut the gas tax by 8.05 cents per litre for nearly two-and-a-half years.

It’s a tale of two approaches: the Trudeau government keeps making life more expensive at the pumps, while premiers of all stripes are fighting to get costs down.

Families still have to get to work, get the kids to school and make it to hockey practice. And they can’t afford increasingly high gas taxes. Common sense premiers seem to get it, while Ottawa has its head in the clouds.

When Ford announced his gas tax cut extension, he took aim at the Liberal carbon tax mandated by the Trudeau government in Ottawa.

Ford noted the carbon tax is set to rise to 20.9 cents per litre next April, “bumping up the cost of everything once again and it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“Our government will always fight against it,” Ford said.

But there’s some good news for taxpayers: reprieve may be on the horizon.

Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s promises to axe the carbon tax as soon as he takes office.

With a federal election scheduled for next fall, the federal carbon tax’s days may very well be numbered.

Scrapping the carbon tax would make a huge difference in the lives of everyday Canadians.

Right now, the carbon tax costs 17.6 cents per litre. For a family filling up two cars once a week, that’s nearly $24 a week in carbon taxes at the pump.

Scrapping the carbon tax could save families more than $1,200 a year at the pumps. Plus, there would be savings on the cost of home heating, food, and virtually everything else.

While the Trudeau government likes to argue that the carbon tax rebates make up for all these additional costs, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says it’s not so.

The PBO has shown that the typical Ontario family will lose nearly $400 this year due to the carbon tax, even after the rebates.

That’s why premiers like Ford, Kinew and Furey have stepped up to the plate.

Canadians pay far too much at the pumps in taxes. While Trudeau hikes the carbon tax year after year, provincial leaders like Ford are keeping costs down and delivering meaningful relief for struggling families.

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