Almost half a million illegal immigrants work in New York, many skirting taxes and state laws. Yet Gov. Hochul and our Democratic establishment is A-OK with it.
Hochul revealed the brain-busting number — 470,100 — this week during her budget unveil: An economic analysis that accompanied it cited concerns about a coming federal immigration crackdown.
“The potential deportation of undocumented immigrants could further exacerbate the state’s population loss and labor shortages,” said the report.
For perspective, the 470,100 figure is about 15% of the state’s total labor force.
(And that’s just how many we know about.)
Yet Hochul and her fellow Dems’ big concern here isn’t that the number making up this shadow economy is so high.
They fret that it might go down when President Trump starts his border crackdown.
Now, it’s beyond rich for Team Hochul to suggest we let illegal migrants stay to solve our population crisis, which is driven by policies she supports.
But richer still is the fact that the party spending countless hours shrieking about workers’ rights is also 100% fine with creating and sustaining massive gray and black markets in labor.
Markets, that is, that feature below-minimum-wage payments to illegal workers that make it impossible for legal, low-skilled workers “protected” by the state’s wage laws ($15.50 minimum statewide and $16.50 in Gotham as of 2025) to compete for jobs.
Markets in which illegal laborers have zero meaningful protections and stand open to exploitation by employers, landlords and everyone else.
Markets that let employers cheat on their taxes by doing payroll off the books.
Per the report, most of these illegal workers are in service professions, including housekeepers and delivery drivers.
Yeah, we get it: For rich Democrats, the prospect of losing out on cheap domestic labor and facing rising food-app prices is unappealing.
But what’s really driving this is the party’s commitment, national, state and local, to keeping the border open and embracing illegal immigration for its own sake.
No matter how much it hurts people who follow the rules while they earn a living, the little guys Dems claim to speak for.
If Hochul & Co. are that desperate for foreigners to replace the legal citizens their policies are driving out, maybe they should argue for more legal immigration and a crackdown on border jumpers who turn the public against all newcomers.
Yet backing an open border is an ideological fixture for blue-state Dem politicos.
And pretending to “protect” the migrants here, despite the cost (both to them and the state) is now obligatory for them.
Still, one thing’s beyond clear, based on the sheer the number here: The left’s claim to stand up for the (legal) working man is pure bull.
