Full Episode: Asylum Seekers Upstate Update, NY& Voting

Dan Clark: For the past few weeks we've tried to bring you a few different views on New York's influx of asylum seekers. Make no mistake, this situation is complex and it's not going away anytime soon. It's estimated that as many as 100,000 people seeking asylum have now arrived in New York. Most of them are in New York City, but a very small fraction have been relocated upstate, with more expected to leave the five boroughs as the crisis continues. 

But this situation has highlighted an ideological divide in New York at a time when political tensions are high ahead of next year's midterm elections, and politics, as we told you, is very much at play here.

Some upstate officials, not all, have been resistant to the asylum seekers, saying this should be handled by Democrats in New York City who've touted their willingness to welcome migrants in the past. New York City Mayor Eric Adams says all of New York should be helping with the crisis, which he says could cost the city $12 billion by summer 2025.

Eric Adams: $12 billion, that has to come from somewhere. When we were at $4 billion, I stated that every service in this city will be impacted. So, imagine when we’re at $12 billion dollars. Every service in this city is going to be impacted.

Dan Clark: And it's not just the city. I asked Governor Kathy Hochul this week how that cost could affect the state's finances as she prepares a state budget proposal for January. Here's what she said.

Kathy Hochul: We are going to be helping the mayor, without a doubt. And that's why the conversations are starting now about what we're going to need next year as well. So that is a very high number. It may be less than ultimately, but I know the state is going to continue helping the mayor of New York with an unprecedented humanitarian crisis to make sure these individuals are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.

Dan Clark: Part of that cost shift could come with relocating more asylum seekers to other parts of the state, which upstate officials are mixed on. But they also say that's going to require planning and coordination with city officials. So far that hasn't always happened. 

While officials in Rochester got a heads up this week before 77 asylum seekers were sent there and welcomed those migrants, a recent situation in Schenectady County played out differently. That's where in July, a Super 8 motel evicted all of its guests, including long term residents, to make room for a group of asylum seekers. 

In that situation, no one says they were given notice from the New York City mayor's office, which created a lot of confusion and left some people without a home.

So now, while this situation continues to evolve, some state lawmakers say there needs to be a fix. That includes Assembly member Angelo Santabarbara, a Democrat who represents the city of Rotterdam. He's sponsoring a bill that he says would prevent a repeat of what happened in his district. As more asylum seekers make their way upstate. We sat down this week to discuss the bill and how this crisis has played out.

Assemblymember Santabarbara, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.

Angelo Santabarbara: Thanks, Dan. Thanks for having me on the show, great to be back.

DC: So this is a new bill, it has a few parts to it. I want to go over the bill first and then kind of unwrap what is inside of it and what the implications of it would be. The first is about communication, and I think this is key to this entire situation that we've been talking to over the past year.

When the asylum seekers came to New York City, the mayor of New York City complained about the lack of communication from the governor of Texas, sending the migrants to New York City originally. This is a bill that you're saying that there needs to be more communication coming out of New York City to upstate communities or on Long Island, where these migrants would be going.

So, tell me how that would work and what you would like to see in terms of more communication.

AS: Well, essentially what you said is right, there were complaints about lack of communication from other states and this entire process. Unfortunately, what we're seeing is that Mayor Adams is engaging in that same type of behavior. And the most recent situation is what happened at the Super 8 motel in Rotterdam, where we received zero communication, zero coordination. We were just as surprised as everyone else left to discover what happened only after it happened.

People that were thrown out of the Super 8 with an hour's notice just essentially evicted that day, told to gather their belongings and leave. They weren't told why. Some of them thought it was an emergency of some sort. So, what this bill does is this bill is going to require that advance notice if you are moving individuals, a 30-day notice to let the receiving county know that, hey, we're planning to do this so that it's not a secretive process, which is, you know, for government to operate in secret like this. It's just unacceptable.

DC: This is not good for anybody. Like in terms of communication, if they're not prepared to take these migrants at the location, then for one, it's not good for the asylum seekers because they're being sent around and they don't know what's happening, and for the locality, I assume it's frustrating not to get that heads up. In the Rotterdam situation I'm curious, how did you find out? I mean, if you weren't given a heads up by the mayor.

AS: We started to get phone calls at our office asking what was going on there. Some people thought the building was being condemned, shut down. We didn't we didn't even know who was on the busses at that point. But then we were able to figure out exactly what was happening. We received news of people being forced out of out of their home, which, there's a whole other discussion going on with the attorney general's office, which I think amounts to illegal evictions. But the attorney general will hopefully will be looking into that. 

So, this bill is going to require that you report this information and provide some relevant information that can help counties make a determination, for starters, how many individuals are coming. This number in Rotterdam kept changing and it's still changing, and it is chaotic, it's unfair, and it doesn't benefit any party involved.

It really ends up hurting everybody. It's just not a good situation that’s going to lead to a positive outcome. The mayor of New York City, I wrote him a letter, and I explained to Mayor Adams, this is irresponsible behavior. This type of behavior has to stop now. 

Not to take away from my conversations with the attorney general, because people need to be held accountable for what happened at the Super 8 in Rotterdam, people got thrown out. The motel owner they bear responsibility here, they went through and they actually threw out people out. The mayor of New York City continuing this behavior that is hurting communities, it's hurting the individuals that they're actually trying to help. So it's not a good situation, and the AG really needs to get to the bottom of this.

They have the resources to do this to find out what happened here.

DC: You mentioned that you wrote the New York City mayor after this happened. Have you heard back? I'm curious about that.

AS: Well, that's the interesting thing, is that there was no advance notice. I did write a letter. I don't have a response. Which what conclusion can I come to besides the fact that you're just going to continue this? You don't care what happens in our upstate communities. You're not aware of our challenges that we face. We have poverty, we have people with personal hardships, we have people that are, as I said, placed there by social services for a number of different reasons. They could be crime victims, it could be domestic violence, it could be a number of different reasons, and I think that the attorney general really should go forward with this and find out who is responsible.

We need to hold people accountable because this situation could easily repeat itself. It could be more individuals next time around.

DC: So, another part of the bill would require the mayor of New York City, or if this was another situation where another mayor was relocating asylum seekers across the state, they would have to file monthly reports on who these people are, how many people, and where have they gone. Basically, tracking all this information and keeping it in one place and making it available to the public.

What's the benefit of those reports? Why would you want those?

AS: I think that is an important part of the bill. It's this bill is about transparency, about letting everybody know what information is out there, what information is available. I think it's all helpful information, and there's a number of different categories in these monthly reports. To have an idea of how many children are we talking about? Why is that important? The school district now in Rotterdam is asking questions. If there's 100 kids coming into the school district or whatever the number is, we need to know that. How can we prepare? You know, September is almost here. I understand there was individuals that were pregnant, So, you know, the medical need, our EMS contacted me, they want to know what's going on because they need to be prepared. 

One source we didn't hear information from was the mayor of New York City. We didn't hear anything from him, but we heard everything that was going on after the fact from everybody else in the community. That's not the way this is supposed to work.

DC: I should clarify that the people who were kicked out of the motel, that wasn't necessarily the New York City mayor's decision, it was decision by the Super 8 motels management, their owner, presumably because they were able to get funding from the New York City mayor's office that might have provided more stability or maybe more revenue from them. We don't really know why, but why not have any part of the bill target that kind of behavior against business owners like that, kicking these people out?

AS: Well, I think this this bill is a government transparency bill and I think the communication part of this, if this bill were in place, that advance communication might have prevented that from happening in the first place. We could have known and maybe could have prevented all of this. 

But you're right, the motel owner does bear responsibility here. Perhaps that is a separate bill that could be forthcoming, and I think it may be needed at some point. I know Schenectady County did pass a resolution that talked about this issue as well, and this is where the AG's investigation comes in. 

I think if this investigation goes forward and I hope that it will, we may get some more insight on what exactly can be done legislatively or is there something in place already that holds individuals like this responsible?

There may be something on the books already, but until we have this investigation completed, we probably won't know the answer to that. But in the meantime, I think that, you know, getting this bill in place will probably prevent this situation in the future.

DC: The legislature here is out of session until January, unless you come back before January, which I think may be in the cards anyway because of other situations like the Seneca Gaming Compact, a lot of stuff up in the air. Do you have any sense of what the support might look like for this when it does come up?

AS: Well, I think that based on what I've heard so far, I have talked to my colleagues. I’m interested in garnering as much support as I can because I do have a Senate sponsor at this point. So, I have the bill placed in both houses. I am talking to fellow legislators. Everyone seems very supportive. There are some suggestions, so you may see some changes to the bill. Some usually happens and you know, almost always there's some changes. But I'm gathering those thoughts ahead of time so that if there are some changes, I have to make some minor changes we can do that because we want to have full support. 

And I heard you, I'm hearing the same thing that there's a good possibility we'll go back before the end of the year, and I know there's other bills out there that people are talking about. So, I want this bill to be ready. I think it makes sense. It's just one of those good government bills that that says, hey, if you're going to do something, you got to let people know. I don't think that's too much to ask. 

You know, not to hear from Mayor Adams at this point, it's been a long time now. I did talk to my congressman who is who represents the area, who's also been trying to reach Mayor Adams. And he said the same thing. It's been complete silence. We haven't heard back. So, I think you know, change course here, cease this this type of behavior and come up with a new way that's a better strategy that's coordinated is the way to go.

For the motel owner I wrote him a letter, I wrote to the company that owns it, a letter as well, and I told them, you need to be part of the solution here. What are you going to do to fix this is what my letter says. You can't just walk away here, you have a responsibility, you are part of this, how are you going to change your practices going forward? Be a part of this community and be a part of the solution. What are you going do to help the individuals who got thrown out?

This is clearly a situation that is not going away, at least not anytime soon. These people are coming here to seek asylum, and that is not a process that is done in two months. It's usually something that is more than a year, maybe up to two years or more at some different points. Do you think that the state should try to step in and play a larger role in connecting these types of things?

You know, the governor and the mayor of New York City have a pretty close relationship. Do you think that she should take advantage of that?

AS: I think that certainly the state has a role, but really the federal government needs to step in here. I've written letters to all of our federal representative office, and they really need to get involved in this situation and advocate for policies that promote good government, that promote the coordination of communication. They need to do that at the federal level, but they also need to address the migrant issue. It is a federal issue at the end of the day. 

The states are being forced to deal with this just as the town of Rotterdam. This situation was forced on us. It was forced on the state. I know it's the town of Rotterdam, but you represent the town of Rotterdam at the federal level.

They all need to be involved and be a part of the solution. They also need to be contacting the mayor's office, the governor's office saying, hey, we can't have this. 

This is a situation where we can't have people getting thrown out onto the street that have all a number of different challenges themselves.

Now, what can be done at the federal level? A lot more can be done, hence the need for their involvement in this situation. What happened in Rotterdam? What else can happen the next time this happens? Could it be more people? Could it harm more individuals? And the answer is, if it happens again, there's a good chance that it will. 

So, you can't just sit around and wait for that to happen, you have to be proactive at this point and put a stop to these practices, this irresponsible practice that the mayor of New York City is engaging in and put an end to that and get involved in in the discussion going forward, how is this going to work? I don't know when this bill is going to pass. Hopefully I said maybe before the end of the year, but between now and then, what else could happen? A lot could happen. Hence, we need federal representatives to get involved in this situation and deal with what is a federal issue.

DC: All right.

This is a bill that we will definitely be watching. Assemblymember Angelo, Santabarbara, thank you so much.

AS: Thank you, Dan. Thanks for having me on the show.

DC: As we said there, the state legislature isn't coming back to Albany anytime soon, we’ll let you know when they do and keep you updated as the situation evolves. 

Dan Clark: Do you remember last year when we had an election right around this time? If you said, no, you're not alone. It was a primary election, so some areas didn't have an election that day, but data from the state Board of Elections shows that where there was an election, turnout was low. That's not uncommon, although we've seen some outliers in the past few election cycles. 

There are a lot of reasons why someone might not vote, from a lack of motivation to forgetting to register or not knowing there's an election at all.

So, in this installment of New York&, we're going to lay out New York's entire election system and why you should feel confident in your vote. 

Dan Clark: Welcome to "New York&: Voting." I'm your host, Dan Clark. With this show, we like to explain the impact that local and state government has on people's lives, while also encouraging folks to be civically engaged and active. And there's no way to make a civics education show without talking about voting. 

Considering how complex and powerful the Empire State is, casting your ballot is incredibly important. And yet, New York's voting numbers are not that impressive. And in the last several election cycles, there's been plenty of talk about voter fraud and voter suppression. In this episode, we're going to take a look at why every single vote, including yours, matters, and why you can vote with confidence. 

In 2017, there was a city council election in Troy, New York that was determined by one vote, just one. While an election being determined by a single vote is a rare occurrence. The fact of the matter is that local elections can run incredibly close. And local governments can have a greater impact on people's lives than you might think. 

Local government can affect things like what your commute is like, what housing gets built in your neighborhood, your property taxes, policing. Despite this, local elections tend to be the ones that people pay the least amount of attention to. 

But even outside of local elections, New York's statewide voter turnout is underwhelming, with the state generally ranking in the bottom quadrant of the country. There certainly are reasons why people may choose not to vote. Maybe their district is gerrymandered, and they feel that the election results are already predetermined. Maybe they feel like they're voting for the lesser of two evils. And are thinking, "I can't believe these are the two options I'm left with." Maybe they feel like politicians simply are not listening to them. 

That's an issue that Laura Bierman of the League of Women Voters of New York hopes campaign finance reform could help address.

Laura Bierman: So often candidates are influenced by their big donors. The people who have the money are donating to candidates. And the candidates feel that they need to be responsive to those donors to continue to get the money. That's why the public matching campaign finance system that's starting next year is so important. And we push so much for campaign finance reform, so that the candidates will listen to their constituents.

DC: New York's new campaign finance program will allow candidates running for statewide office, the state senate, and the state assembly to apply for a public match of donations received between $5 and $250 with certain stipulations. The idea is to allow campaigns to competitively fundraise without relying on big money donors that some may then feel beholden to. But in addition to campaign finance reform, New York is working to make it easier to vote. 

We've already told you about why people may choose not to vote. But it's important to note that New York State and its counties have been criticized in the past for a lack of streamlined voting. Voter suppression is when action is taken to prevent or reduce voter registration, or the number of ballots cast in an election. This can include adding red tape to the registration and voting process, moving a community's polling site to an inconvenient location, or committing acts of voter intimidation. But the state has been working on ways to make the voting process easier for folks in hopes of improving turnout. 

We spoke with Jennifer Wilson from the New York State Board of Elections, so she could tell us the ways the state is working to improve access to the ballot box.

Jennifer Wilson: We have really increased our access to voting. Previously, we didn't have early voting. Now we do have early voting. And that is something that will help build our voter participation. We have also decreased the voter registration time. So, now voters can register 10 days before an election. That's another thing that can help boost turnout. And we will soon be implementing automatic voter registration here in New York State. And that is another thing that will eliminate the barrier of having to register to vote. People will already be registered automatically through the DMV, so that will also help boost turnout over time.

DC: Between campaign finance reform and easier access to voting, New York is working to make elections more meaningful. But what about another voting issue that's been in the headlines lately, voter fraud and election integrity? We'll get into that next.

Voter fraud is the illegal action of attempting to impact election results by casting false votes, voting multiple times, or generally conspiring to alter election results through illegal means. It's also something that rarely happens. There certainly are cases of fraud. Recently, in Rensselaer County, multiple county officials as well as a Troy City councilwoman were indicted on federal charges for absentee ballot fraud. The thing with voter fraud is that it's practically always caught. 

Here's Jennifer Wilson's take on it.

JW: Our state and most states have really extensive check and balance in place. So, when instances of fraud do occur, and they are very, very rare, but when it happens, they are always caught. They catch the people who try and submit fake ballots or vote under a fake name. We catch them and a lot of times they go to prison. So, it is a very risky thing to do to try and commit voter fraud. So, I would say it's something that the general public shouldn't be as concerned about, because when it happens, in the small instances that it does happen, we catch those people, and they get in a lot of trouble.

DC: To help emphasize the fact that our elections are secure, we thought it would be helpful to describe what happens to your ballot after you cast it. You fill out your ballot, and put it in the machine. At the end of the election, the machine prints out a total tabulated vote count. The submitted ballots are then collected, and securely transported, often by a police escort, to the county's respective Board of Elections. But what if the machines counted the votes wrong? 

Well, that doesn't really happen. For a voting machine to be used in New York State, it must receive certification. According to the State Board of Elections, in order for a machine to get certified, it must count 1 million ballots correctly. Any mistake in that chain of 1 million means that the machine will not be used. But even with the use of extremely accurate machines, an audit is still performed after the election, where counties choose 3% of the voting machines they used, and compare a hand versus machine count. If discrepancies are found, the audit expands until potentially reaching a countywide hand count. But that hasn't happened, because the machines, again, are incredibly accurate. Votes are tallied between early voting, absentee voting, and day of voting. Even after a winner is declared, it can take a few months before the election results are officially certified, since the boards want to be as accurate as possible with their safeguards. So, what I'm saying is this, vote with confidence, it will count. 

So, we know that New York has made changes to campaign finance, and has taken steps to make voting easier. We also know that your vote and our elections are secure and legitimate. But I want to emphasize again that your vote really counts. Remember when I mentioned the Troy City Council race that was determined by just one vote? 

Well, in 2020, a congressional race in New York's 22nd district was determined by just 109 votes out of more than 300,000. So, even at a larger scale, your voice matters. But your vote matters beyond the numbers. We asked Laura Bierman about her thoughts on why it's important to go out and vote.

LB: The younger people have voter participation rates much lower than the older generation. And so, then you think about, "Well, what are most of the discussions at the national level or even the state level?" It has to do with social security, Medicare, some of the things that affect those people. Now, if the younger people had a higher voter participation, don't you think that those candidates or those elected officials might be thinking about some of the issues that are more important to the young people?

DC: If candidates know that specific generations or groups won't consider voting for them, unless certain issues are addressed, then they're more likely to take into consideration the issues those groups find important. It all comes down to making your voice heard, and reminding our public servants what we're looking for in our government. Voting is one of the easiest ways to do that. Thanks for watching, and until next time, be well.

Watch more of our civics series NY& here.

Catch this week's show on your local PBS member station, or watch on YouTube, Facebook, or using the free PBS app anytime after Friday. A podcast version is available wherever you normally get podcasts. 

On This Week's Edition of New York NOW:

• New York's influx of asylum seekers continues, with more being transported upstate this week. A few weeks ago, we brought you a special discussion on the situation. This week, we speak with Assemblymember Angelo Santabarbara, D-Schenectady, about a bill he's introduced that he says would help better organize the process.
• Concerns over the integrity of elections began to pop up during, and after, the 2020 election, including in New York. So, how confident should you be in New York's elections, and voting? We'll explain the entire process, and how your vote is protected, in a new installment of NY&.