Governor Murphy flip-flops on aiding immigrants

Gov. Phil Murphy’s opposition to a plan to bring asylum seekers to Atlantic City is shameful.

Just six years ago, Murphy campaigned to become our governor by drawing a bright line between the kind of America Donald Trump wants and the kind of America Murphy believes in.

“The America I know is the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty, written by Emma Lazarus in the 1880s. We open up for all to come here,” Murphy said in 2017.

Now that there are thousands of migrants who could potentially seek a home here, Murphy wants to put up the no vacancy sign.

Asked Thursday about a reported Biden administration proposal that New York City send some of the migrants that have arrived in the city this year to the federally owned Atlantic City airport, Murphy told News 12’s Eric Landskroner he’s opposed.

“I don’t see any scenario, Eric, where we’re going to be able to take in a program in Atlantic City, or frankly elsewhere in the state. We are already seeing folks in New Jersey that have probably swelled into Jersey from New York City or from other locations. But you need scale, enormous amount of federal support, resources that go beyond anything we can afford. Putting all else aside, I just don’t see it, and I would suspect that that would continue to be the case,” he said.

So, we open up for all to come here … unless it’s inconvenient, then stay where you are.

Nothing about the theme of Lazarus’ poem has changed in six years, but politically, Murphy is in a different world. The anti-Trump rage that propelled Murphy into the governor’s mansion has cooled with Trump out of the White House; Murphy can’t seek a third term in 2025, so whatever job he’s eyeing now may require him to be a little less pro-sanctuary state; and the flood of people seeking asylum in the United States is no longer an abstract group thousands of miles away, it is right here on our doorstep.

I get that this is a complex problem. It would cost the state money. A lot of children would end up in New Jersey schools that the schools did not think they’d have to educate. This entire thing was dreamed up by the Biden administration without any input from New Jersey.

But that’s a lot of the argument on the Republican side against letting asylum seekers into the country to begin with: that we don’t have the resources, that our schools are already overcrowded, that the federal government is not considering anything that affects localities. If New Jersey Democrats are conceding that, where does the party stand on immigration and on America as a refuge for citizens of the globe?

The real problem here, I fear, is less complicated: Murphy’s party worries about losing at the polls if they pick the wrong side on this issue.

In November, all 120 legislative seats are on the ballot, and Democrats are panicky. The party is comfortably in charge of the Statehouse now, but they don’t want a repeat of 2021, when the GOP flipped eight seats, mostly in South Jersey. Republicans are now eying a flip in South Jersey’s Fourth District, where the retirement of the district’s longtime senator and new district boundaries give the GOP a better chance than it had two years ago. Parts of the district are a mere 30 miles from Atlantic City’s airport.

Given these political realities, Democrats have a choice about how to respond to the idea of migrants moving here: Argue that we’re a nation of immigrants and we should be humane to people fleeing violence in other countries by offering them sanctuary, an argument the party made just six years ago and won on; or, panic, turn out the lights, and pretend no one’s home.

The second path is the one they’re taking, with Murphy’s blessing.