Arizona Sen. Sinema rips Biden, Dems for giving $100M in border funds to NY

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema slammed Democratic Party leaders again Wednesday for celebrating more than $100 million in federal funds to help shelter migrants in New York while her own border state of Arizona was given a fraction of that.

The senator, who left the Democratic Party in December to become an independent, doubled down on criticism she made earlier this month of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) after the two boasted in June of securing Gotham $104.6 million of an $800 million grant from the Biden administration.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded just $23,890,395 in the same month to organizations in Arizona through its Shelter and Services Program, according to its webpage.

In an interview with Politico published Wednesday, Sinema said the reason for the discrepancy was “fairly obvious.”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but the announcement about that $104 million came out first, in a joint press release from Schumer and Jeffries — not from the White House or from FEMA,” she told the outlet. “The first news of it broke by their press release. Now, how did that happen?”

Sinema added that she followed up with officials at both the Department of Homeland Security and the White House, telling them the decision was “deeply, deeply wrong.”

“This administration has been working from day one to build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system and we’ve led the largest expansion of lawful pathways for immigration in decades,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement to Politico. “We are committed to our continued partnership with border communities to ensure they can receive the support they need.”

The Senate tucked the federal funds into its $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill passed last December — months before President Biden moved to end Title 42 deportations in May.

Sinema had told an attendee at an Aug. 2 roundtable in Yuma that her staff would “be really upset” with her for speaking candidly about the issue but she would “tell you the truth here.”

“The reason the money is going to New York is because the Speaker of the House is from New York and the leader of the United States Senate is from New York,” she said, apparently misidentifying Jeffries’ title. “That is how a bunch of money went to New York.”

“The money was intended, and there’s language that was put in in the law that said it should be going for decompression at the border,” she also said.

“The fact that a yeoman’s amount of this money went to New York City, in my opinion, is wrong because they are not a border state and they are not facing the kind of pressure that we are facing here.”

Schumer and Jeffries called the disbursement “the largest share” of any federal funds to states for supporting asylum seekers, according to their press release.

Reps for Schumer and Jeffries did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mayor Eric Adams has said the Big Apple faces a shocking $12 billion price tag over the next year to house and care for its growing migrant population.

“We are past our breaking point,” Adams warned the Biden administration in an address at City Hall.

Arizona Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego has also criticized the Biden administration for its decision to allocate the “funding away from border communities and towards interior states.”

“After continued conversations with entities in Arizona whose funding has been altered under the new allocation, it is clear Arizona’s communities face potentially dire funding cliffs,” Gallego wrote in an Aug. 1 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The Arizona Democrat said his state’s funds would last only a few months before running out.

The frustration comes as Gallego prepares to potentially face Sinema in a competitive, three-way Senate election next year.

Few Republican candidates have announced their campaigns for Senate in the border state, though reports indicate failed 2022 gubernatorial contender Kari Lake has considered entering the race.

More than 32,000 migrants crossed the US-Mexico border into the Yuma and Tucson sectors this past June, Customs and Border Protection data show. Nearly 10,000 arrive every month in New York City.