According to an exclusive report from The New York Post, the Biden administration pressured El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser to refrain from declaring a state of emergency over the city’s migrant crisis. The pressuring was reportedly due to fear an emergency declaration would make President Joe Biden look bad.
Citing “sources familiar with the matter,” The Post reported at least three of the El Paso City Council’s eight members have urged Mayor Leeser to issue the declaration in response to the thousands of migrants who’ve filled the city’s shelters and are being housed in local hotels. One of the officials told The New York Post that Leeser admitted during a private phone conversation that he’d been directed otherwise by the Biden administration.
“He told me the White House asked him not to,” El Paso City Councilmember Claudia Rodriguez said. She added that Leeser has repeatedly assured her that he’d declare a state of emergency “if things got worse” — without saying what that meant.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district covers rural areas and border towns near El Paso, also said he heard similar accounts from other city officials. He also alleged that the White House has done “the same thing in other parts of my district.”
“It is a sleight of hand what the administration is doing — pressuring the local government to not issue a declaration of emergency, to say as if everything is going OK,” Rep. Gonzales said.
El Paso has seen 62,000 migrants enter city limits in a six-month span. 10,000 migrants have also been relocated to New York by bus.
The difference maker in declaring a state of emergency comes down to money. While the federal government has reimbursed El Paso to the tune of $2 million, that total covers just a fraction of the $8 million El Paso has spent dealing with the migrant crisis. City officials have said if Leeser would’ve declared the emergency months ago, more funding could’ve been available to better sustain an already-fragile system.