More than 100 mayors back Biden’s supplemental request with added migrant funding

A group of more than 100 U.S. mayors voiced support for a supplemental request with more immigration funding. 

In a Tuesday letter, mayors from all over the U.S. said President Biden’s $1.4 billion request to Congress to help at the state and local level in supplying shelter and services for migrants is not enough. They said although the $1.4 billion is “welcome,” they need more “badly.”

“We are mayors from cities all over America — cities on or near the border and cities in other parts of the country to which migrants, including those awaiting asylum requests, have come,” the letter from the United States Conference of Mayors, first obtained by Politico, reads. 

“While we welcome migrants to our cities, we need more help to provide them food, housing, services and access to employment,” the letter continues. “In many of our cities, both city government agencies and local non-profits are overwhelmed; they simply cannot keep up with the need to provide them this most basic assistance.”

The U.S. Conference of Mayors describes itself as “the official non-partisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more.”

The letter follows another recent letter by the mayors of five big cities that also pressed the president for more federal help in handling an influx of migrants into their cities. The leaders of Denver, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York City argued they have not received enough help, resources or coordination from the Biden administration. 

“While we are greatly appreciative of the additional federal funding proposed, our city budgets and local taxpayers continue to bear the brunt of this ongoing federal crisis,” the letter, obtained by The Associated Press, read. “Cities have historically absorbed and integrated new migrants with success.”

Those five mayors also signed the conference’s letter.