FIRST ON FOX: Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy frequently touts a rags-to-riches story on the campaign trail, declaring during Wednesday night’s debate that his parents immigrated to the U.S. with nothing, but public records and Ramaswamy’s past writings paint a more nuanced picture about his upbringing.

‘I’m not a politician,’ Ramaswamy said during his opening remarks at the Fox News-hosted debate in Milwaukee. ‘I’m an entrepreneur. My parents came to this country with no money 40 years ago. I have gone on to found multibillion dollar companies.’

Later in the debate, while discussing his support for school choice, Ramaswamy said he ‘didn’t grow up in money.’

It’s a narrative the multimillionaire millennial often uses to connect with voters on the campaign trail, while also attempting to differentiate himself from former President Donald Trump. 

Before the debate Wednesday, Ramaswamy sat down with ABC News and said that unlike Trump, he ‘actually built the companies from scratch.’ 

‘I didn’t inherit anything,’ he said. ‘I built the companies from zero to nothing. My parents came to this country with no money.’

Ramaswamy, 38, was born in 1985 in Cincinnati to V. Ganapathy Ramaswamy and Geetha Ramaswamy, who were upper-caste Tamil Brahmin in India. Both parents were highly educated professionals in India before they made the decision to move to the U.S. and start a family. 

Ramaswamy’s father held a graduate degree in engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, when he immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s.

In his 2022 book ‘Nation of Victims,’ Ramaswamy wrote that when he was in sixth grade, or about 11 years old, his father had been working as an engineer at General Electric for the past 20 years, or since about 1976.

Two years after their marriage, Ramaswamy’s father earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati while still working at General Electric in 1985, according to details in his father’s dissertation. That same year, Ramaswamy’s mother immigrated to America, and Vivek was born that August, followed by his younger brother Shankar.

Ramaswamy’s mother already held a medical degree in geriatric psychiatry from Mysore Medical College & Research Institute in India by the time she arrived in the U.S. in 1985. She obtained her license to practice in Oklahoma less than six months after coming to the U.S., according to state records, though it is unclear why in Oklahoma. That license expired in 2014.

Ramaswamy’s mother obtained her Ohio medical license the following year, in February 1987, which is still active, according to public records, and she worked as a geriatric psychiatrist and medical director at a private practice in Cincinnati from the time her son was 4 years old until he was in college, according to her LinkedIn profile.

In ‘Nation of Victims,’ Ramaswamy wrote that when he was in the sixth grade, he belonged to a ‘comfortably middle-class family with two incomes,’ but the threat of layoffs still loomed.

By 2000, during Ramaswamy’s high school years, his father was working as a patent attorney at General Electric.

Ramaswamy attended an elite private high school in Cincinnati where tuition today costs over $16,000 per year.

His parents also apparently established a stock portfolio for him that was bringing in hundreds of dollars in dividends before he graduated high school and thousands by the time he attended Harvard, according to his 2002-2004 tax returns, which he released in June.

Ramaswamy’s campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Questions about Ramaswamy’s past have been ramping up in recent months after he quickly rose in the polls to third place behind front-runner Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Fox News Digital reported earlier this week that Ramaswamy had already become a millionaire by the time he accepted a Soros-family scholarship he previously said he needed in order to pay for law school.

Ramaswamy defended himself last month for accepting a $90,000 award from the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which was founded by Daisy and Paul Soros, the late older brother of liberal billionaire financier George Soros. 

Ramaswamy said that after graduating from Harvard, he ‘didn’t have the money’ to afford Yale Law School.

‘There was a separate scholarship that I won at the age of 24-25, when I was going to law school in my mid-20s, in my early 20s, when I didn’t have the money and it was a merit scholarship that hundreds of kids win, that was partially funded, not by George Soros, but by Paul Soros a relative, his brother,’ Ramaswamy said.

‘And to be perfectly honest with you, I would have had to be a fool to turn down that scholarship at the age of 24,’ he added.

When Ramaswamy accepted the award in 2011, he was a first-year law student at Yale and had been working for several years as an investment analyst at the hedge fund QVT Financial.

In 2011, the same year he accepted the award, Ramaswamy reported $2,252,209 in total income, according to his tax returns. He reported a total of $1,173,690 in income in the three years prior.

‘Vivek won a generic scholarship that hundreds of students win to attend graduate school,’ his campaign’s spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, told Fox News Digital on Monday. ‘It was funded by a relative of George Soros who is long dead.’

‘Vivek would have been a fool to turn down that scholarship – Anyone who would have shouldn’t get anywhere near the White House doing trade deals,’ she continued. ‘In fact, there’s only one candidate that will be on stage Wednesday night whom George Soros has said he wants to win this primary – and it’s not Vivek.’

Former President Donald Trump made his first post on X, formerly known as Twitter, after being booked into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday evening.

The post on X contained a picture reading ‘Mug Shot – August 24, 2023. Election interference. Never Surrender! DonaldJTrump.Com.’ 

Trump was suspended from what was then known as Twitter in January 2021, but Elon Musk allowed him back on the platform shortly after buying the company in October 2022.

Trump made the social media post shortly after Fulton County Jail officials released his mugshot, which is the first ever taken of a former president.

He faces 13 charges in relation to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

Fox News Digital’s Brandon Gillespie and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

The celebrations from Democrats, including President Biden, have begun rolling in following former President Donald Trump’s booking in the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta on Thursday.

Some sought to remind others of the phrase often repeated by members of their party that ‘no one is above the law,’ while Biden used the opportunity to fundraise for his 2024 re-election campaign.

‘Apropos of nothing, I think today’s a great day to give to my campaign,’ Biden posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. Trump’s campaign also later posted its own fundraising request on Truth Social, using the mugshot taken at the jail.

‘In the United States, no one is above the law. No one,’ Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, also wrote on X, including a photo of Trump’s mugshot.

Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., echoed Pingree in her own X post, citing the ‘four indictments and 91 charges in total’ against Trump, and arguing it was ‘not normal.’

‘I’m sad for our country; hopeful for justice; thoughtful for Mr. Trump’s day in court; disappointed yet confident for our democracy and rule of law. No one is above the law,’ she wrote.

Trump’s mugshot was released after he was booked into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta earlier in the evening on charges stemming from District Attorney Dani Willis’ investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.

The mugshot is the first ever taken by a former U.S. president and comes as Trump faces a total of 13 charges, including racketeering.

Tennessee Republican lawmakers hit an impasse Thursday just a few days into a special session sparked by a deadly school shooting in March, leaving little certainty about what they might ultimately pass, yet all but guaranteeing it won’t be any significant gun control change.

After advancing a few bills this week, the GOP-dominant Senate quickly adjourned Thursday without taking up any more proposals, promising to come back Monday. The announcement prompted booing and jeers from the crowd of gun control advocates watching in the galleries.

But the decision also ignited outrage among the Republican supermajority inside the House as they continue to churn through a full slate of other proposals. House leaders argue that they’re using the special session to take up a wide range of proposals, while the Senate has refused to budge from passing anything that wasn’t in the limited legislative agenda outlined by the governor at the beginning of the special session.

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers have expressed alarm that the only bills being considered in either chamber have only focused on mass tragedy responses rather than preventive measures specifically addressing gun violence.

‘We are preparing for the next tragedy,’ said Democratic Rep. Justin Pearson, who was expelled from the House earlier this year for joining pro-gun control protesters from the House floor but has since been reinstated. ‘Preparing for the next victims of children … to be met with gun violence because maybe this is the best we can do.’

The standoff between the two chambers has added fuel to an already emotional and chaotic special legislative session, where gun-control advocates want the GOP-dominant Statehouse to consider tweaking the state’s relaxed gun laws.

Instead, Republican legislative leaders have taken steps to limit public access to the Capitol building and increased the presence of law enforcement. House Republicans attempted to ban the public from holding signs during floor and committee proceedings, but a Tennessee judge has since blocked that rule from being implemented. In one hearing, a House subcommittee chairman had troopers make the public leave the room after deeming the crowd too unruly. That included grieving parents closely connected to the school shooting, who broke down in tears at the decision.

Senate Speaker Randy McNally told reporters Thursday that senators will consider any bills the House may amend, but held off from promising to making a compromise with the other chamber.

‘We might be here for too long of a period of time,’ McNally said.

Legislative officials have said it costs nearly $60,000 a day when lawmakers are in session, but that doesn’t take into account the many state troopers that have lined the walls of the Capitol and legislative offices over the past week.

Republican Gov. Bill Lee called lawmakers back into session after the March shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, where three children and three adults were killed. Lee had hoped to cobble together a coalition to pass his proposal to keep guns away from people who are judged to pose a threat to themselves or others, which he argued stopped well short of being a so-called red flag law. It had already failed to get a vote in the final days of the monthslong regular session that ended in April.

Ultimately, no Republican would even sponsor the bill for this week, and Democratic versions of it were spiked in committee without any debate.

Beyond that, the governor has proposed a few smaller changes that he touted would improve public safety, some of which the Senate has passed. They would incentivize people to use safe gun storage items; require an annual human trafficking report; etch into state law some changes to background checks already made by an order of the governor; and set aside more state money for school resource officers, and bonuses and scholarships for behavioral professionals.

House Republicans have taken up much more.

One of the proposals moving in the House would require that juveniles age 16 or older be charged as adults in murder or attempted murder cases. The measure would allow for a juvenile sentence combined with an adult sentence for when the offender turns 19, and would cover more than a dozen other offenses ranging from robbery to rape.

The House’s other active bills include one to shield the public disclosure of autopsies of child homicide victims, which is supported by a group of some Covenant School parents.

The House had considered, but stopped advancing, two bills to allow more teachers and staff, or members of the broader public with carry permits, to bring guns into public K-12 schools. Some bills about armed security in schools remain alive, including a proposal that would let local law enforcement leaders decide on their own whether to place officers in schools that don’t already have school resource officers.

‘At this point, the Senate haven’t put forth a single idea that’s theirs,’ House Speaker Cameron Sexton told reporters from the House floor. ‘So maybe next week they’ll come back and do something.’

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A federal court in Maryland decided Thursday that parents can’t opt their kids out of reading books with LGBTQ+ content in Montgomery County Schools.

In Tamer Mahmoud v. Monica B. McKnight, parents sought to reinstate a MCPS policy that would allow them to opt their children out of reading and discussing books with LGBTQ+ characters in elementary schools. The parents argued the content in these books was a form of indoctrination that violated their families’ religious beliefs. 

The court disagreed. Judge Deborah L. Boardman, a Biden appointee, concluded that the parents’ ‘asserted due process right to direct their children’s upbringing by opting out of a public-school curriculum that conflicts with their religious views is not a fundamental right.’ 

The judge denied the parents’ request for a preliminary injunction that would allow them to opt-out their kids when school begins on August 28.

‘Because the plaintiffs have not established any of their claims is likely to succeed on the merits, the Court need not address the remaining preliminary injunction factors. Nonetheless, because a constitutional violation is not likely or imminent, it follows that the plaintiffs are not likely to suffer imminent irreparable harm, and the balance of the equities and the public interest favor denying an injunction to avoid undermining the School Board’s legitimate interests in the no-opt-out policy,’ the judge determined. 

‘The plaintiffs seek the same relief pending appeal as in their preliminary injunction motion: an injunction that requires the Board to provide advance notice and opt-outs from instruction involving the storybooks and family life and human sexuality. For the reasons stated in this opinion, the Court cannot conclude the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of an appeal. The plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction pending appeal is denied.’

The controversy arose last year when Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) introduced more than 22 new books featuring LGBTQ+ characters into classrooms as part of a diversity initiative. Initially, the school district notified parents when these materials would be used in class and permitted them to opt their kids out from instruction involving these books, as they can with other portions of the curriculum. 

But in March, the district changed its policy and announced that parents would no longer have that right. A group of religious families of diverse faiths sued, claiming the policy violated their First Amendment right to guide the religious instruction of their children. 

But Boardman said otherwise: ‘The no-opt-out policy does not pressure the parents to refrain from teaching their faiths, to engage in conduct that would violate their religious beliefs, or to change their religious beliefs. The policy may pressure them to discuss the topics raised by the storybooks with their children, but those discussions are anticipated, not prohibited, by the parents’ faiths. The parents are not pressured into violating their religious beliefs in order to obtain the benefits of a public education.’

Eric Baxter, VP and Senior Counsel at Becket – the law firm representing the families – said the ruling ‘flies in the face of parental freedom, childhood innocence, and basic human decency.’ 

‘The court’s decision is an assault on children’s right to be guided by their parents on complex and sensitive issues regarding human sexuality. The School Board should let kids be kids and let parents decide how and when to best educate their own children consistent with their religious beliefs,’ Baxter said. 

The LGBTQ+ books added to the district’s curriculum are included in pre-K through eighth-grade classrooms and feature references to gay pride parades, gender transition and pronoun preference. 

After nearly seven hours of heated debate and public comment beginning Tuesday night, another Southern California school district implemented a parental notification policy that requires schools to disclose to parents if their child identifies as transgender.

Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD), one of the most prestigious academic districts in Southern California’s Inland Empire, voted Wednesday around 1 a.m. in a 3-2 vote to notify parents if their child identifies as a different gender than what they were born with or uses different preferred pronouns on school grounds. 

Proponents and opponents of the policy packed the boardroom, with both sides addressing the board during public comments. Rainbow Pride flags and American flags sprinkled the room. The meeting was not without frequent interruptions of cheers and heckling. 

TVUSD joins Murrieta Unified School District and the Chino Valley Unified School District, which also adopted parental notification policies recently. 

The policy, resembling the framework of state Assembly Bill 1314, also mandates notifying parents when their children use specific school facilities that don’t align with the gender indicated on their birth certificate. This includes spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms, as well as participation in school sports programs.

‘The Temecula Valley Unified School District Board of Education strives to foster trust between the District and parent(s)/guardian(s) of its students,’ the policy states. ‘To that end, the Board supports the fundamental rights of parent(s)/guardian(s) to direct the care and upbringing of their children, including the right to be informed of and involved in all aspects of their child’s education to promote the best outcomes.’

Opponents of the policy, introduced by board President Joseph Komrosky and Jen Wiersma, said during the meeting it will only cause harm to students who do not have supportive families of their preferred gender identity. 

Meanwhile, parents and some former teachers argued it is the parents’ right to know sensitive information about their child. 

‘It is absolutely unacceptable that we have to be here tonight to propose a policy that requires an adult to notify me as a parent regarding my child’s behavior,’ one speaker in favor of the policy said to the board. ‘Why are teachers behaving like they’re a student’s best friend?’

One speaker, who identified as a transgender student and opposed the policy, said to the board: ‘If I didn’t have a way to express myself, I probably would have succumbed to depression and unalive myself, and that is exactly what’s happening to most kids who have abusive parents who kick them out for their lifestyle choices.’

The move comes as the district has found itself at the center of a culture war in the Golden State as Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a $1.5 million fine last month to the district for rejecting a state-approved social studies curriculum involving a biography on gay rights activist Harvey Milk. 

Concerned parents and the board rejected the curriculum due in part to allegations of Milk having a romantic relationship with a 16-year-old boy when he was in his early 30s. 

Following Chino Valley’s adoption of the policy, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he would be investigating the district for ‘potential legal violations’ this month.

‘Students should never fear going to school for simply being who they are,’ Bonta said in a news release. ‘Chino Valley Unified’s forced outing policy threatens the safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ students vulnerable to harassment and potential abuse from peers and family members unaccepting of their gender identity.’

This week, parents protested at the state’s Capitol against several controversial bills which they say remove their right to protect their children. And in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday, parents rallied in support of such notification policies in their school districts. 

The Orange Unified School District will also be considering a similar notification policy this week that would require a written notification to parents within three days after their child identifies as a different gender other than what they were born with. 

Change may be in the offing in a city that’s infamous for its homeless street camping and poop map.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Wednesday accused the homeless coalition of holding the city ‘hostage for decades.’ 

London made those comments while joining a crowd of more than 200 people who had gathered outside the federal courthouse to urge the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to cancel a federal judge’s order banning the city from clearing tent encampments until there are more shelter beds than homeless individuals.

‘The homeless coalition has held San Francisco hostage for decades. It is time for their reign to end,’ Breed said, noting that the city has spent billions of dollars to help homeless people. 

People who want more tents cleared chanted ‘save our streets’ while a smaller crowd of those supporting the injunction rallied on the sidewalk beside them, chanting ‘stop the sweeps.’ 

The downtown courthouse is near a Whole Foods Market store that closed in April, citing worker safety amid deteriorating street conditions. 

By San Francisco’s own estimates, there are more than 3,300 people sleeping in the city’s homeless shelters, with around 4,400 sleeping on the city’s streets on a given night. 

The order banning the city from clearing homeless encampments until there are more shelter beds available has drawn furious responses from city leaders. But attorneys for homeless residents who sued the city argued before the panel that the district court judge was correct and they intend to ask the same judge at a hearing Thursday to enforce the injunction.

‘There are 3,000 shelter beds in the city for 7,000 or more unhoused people who are sleeping outside every night because they have no choice in the matter,’ said Zal Shroff, interim legal director at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, at Wednesday’s rally.

It is unclear when the panel of Judges Patrick J. Bumatay, Roopali Desai and Lucy Koh will issue a decision. They sought clarifications from the other side on which enforcement actions were acceptable.

San Francisco officials say their encampment operations allow outreach workers to connect homeless people to services while cleaning areas soiled with trash, used needles, and spoiled food. Breed and others also say it’s inhumane to allow unhygienic encampments to fester, scaring away customers and blocking sidewalks for people who use wheelchairs.

Advocates for homeless people say the encampment operations merely serve to harass homeless people as there are few services and appropriate shelter beds available. They say it’s cruel and counterproductive to criminalize people for not having a place to live with affordable housing so scarce.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Coalition on Homelessness for comment. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

A mugshot of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was released on Thursday after he turned himself in at a jail in Atlanta, Georgia, connected to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Meadows, a former congressman who served as chief of staff to President Trump, was indicted along with Trump and more than a dozen others out of the Fulton County probe launched by the district attorney.

The charges include violating the Georgia RICO Act—the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act. The court set Trump’s bail at $200,000, and he is expected to be quickly processed and released. Fox News Digital has learned his formal arraignment, where he is expected to plead not guilty, will take place sometime early next month. 

Others charged out of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ probe, like former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and more had their photos taken during processing. 

It marks the latest in a number of prosecutions against Trump, but this is the first that will require him also to pose for a mug shot — an image that is likely to be seen as iconic. Trump has denied wrongdoing in this case and others.

He has disputed the call at the center of the case, in which he urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to find 11,000 votes to overturn his loss to President Biden. Trump has called the phone call ‘perfect.’

In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 charges of falsifying business records brought by a Manhattan grand jury after a years-long investigation into alleged hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal leading up to the 2016 election. Both women were paid for their silence on alleged affairs with Trump — affairs Trump has repeatedly denied.

In June, Trump was indicted on federal charges that emerged out of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation related to the handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. He again pleaded not guilty.

Earlier this month, he pleaded not guilty to more charges stemming from the same investigation, but relating to 2020 election interference and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. 

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

A group of climate activists disrupted and shut down a Nantucket, Massachusetts, fundraising event benefiting Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey after they demanded she ban new fossil fuel projects.

The activists, who are members of the group Climate Defiance, interrupted Healey during the event earlier this week on the ritzy Nantucket island located off the coast of Massachusetts and which appeared to be taking place in the backyard of a house. They then chanted slogans before being forcibly escorted off the home’s premises.

‘Excuse me, Gov. Healey, I’m sorry to interrupt. We are in the midst of a climate emergency,’ one of the protesters interjected. ‘My name is Matt. I’m 20 years old and you’re throwing away my future. The state of Massachusetts is building 10 new fossil fuel infrastructure projects right now. We need you to ban new fossil fuel infrastructure right now. Will you commit to doing that?’

‘Let’s talk about that,’ Healey responded. ‘There’s a huge transition that we’re undergoing and there’s a lot of work to do. But let me tell you—’

The protester then interrupted Healey, adding that banning fossil fuels was key to ensuring any green energy transition.

When event attendees began pushing back against the activists, the group started repeatedly chanting, ‘End fossil fuels, Maura. End fossil fuels.’

‘The fossil fuel industry bought you out,’ another protester screamed. ‘The fossil fuel industry gave you $50,000.’

Attendees then started arguing with the activists, with one saying he had been a climate activist for ‘longer than you have been alive’ to the first protester that interrupted Healey’s remarks. That attendee said the group had hurt their cause by being disruptive.

Another attendee said he primarily used solar panels to power his home and a third attendee yelled ‘get out’ to the activists.

Healey, who is serving her first term as Massachusetts’ governor after serving for years as the state’s attorney general, has pursued an aggressive climate agenda. In early January, on her first day in office, Healey appointed the state’s first-ever climate chief and established the new Office of Climate Innovation and Resilience.

‘The climate crisis is Massachusetts’ greatest challenge, but there is enormous opportunity in our response,’ Healey said at the time. 

‘I’m filing this Executive Order today, on the first full day of the Healey-Driscoll Administration, because we have no time to delay,’ she continued. ‘It’s essential that we begin coordinating our climate policy across all state agencies and all communities in Massachusetts so that we can make the progress we so urgently need and drive our clean energy economy.’

The Nantucket event was one of many that Climate Defiance has interrupted and shut down as part of its goal to force lawmakers to do more on climate issues. They have also targeted events featuring federal officials like Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and senior White House climate adviser John Podesta.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul delivered a public address Thursday calling on the White House to take executive action to combat the ongoing illegal migrant crisis.

In her address, Hochul emphasized the need to integrate migrants into New York City through work and housing initiatives, requesting President Biden’s administration to invest heavily in settling the communities of asylum seekers.

‘I’m fully aware that New Yorkers are concerned that over the past year, more than 100,000 asylum seekers have arrived in our state, requiring a historic humanitarian response,’ Hochul said. ‘Moments ago, I issued a letter to the Biden administration formally requesting that it take executive action to address New York’s migrant crisis.’

Hochul elaborated, ‘What we’ve said all along is just let them work and help us out financially. That’s why today I have sent a letter to President Biden formally requesting immediate executive action in four key areas. First, expedited work authorization, so we can get these people out of shelters and into the jobs. Financial support, federal housing vouchers, schools, health care, legal services, case and shelter for us to provide to these asylum seekers.’

The governor saud that the migrant crisis ‘originated with the federal government’ and ‘must be resolved through the federal government,’ but claimed that the state’s ‘countless unfilled jobs’ provided a prime opportunity to integrate border crossers. 

‘We are ready to act as soon as these migrants receive work. But right now, because we’ve been waiting a very long time, the State Department of Labor, we are launching a new program this September to place asylum seekers in jobs just as soon as they’re legally able to work,’ Hochul announced. ‘And we’re going to go a step further. And I’m ordering the Department of Labor to proactively connect asylum seekers with potential employers in anticipation of them receiving the work authorization before they are already authorized.’

Hochul blamed the influx of illegal immigrants to the city on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has made a point of transporting migrants to Democrat-run cities across the country to ease the crisis at the southern border.

‘It started at our nation’s southern border when Governor of Texas Greg Abbott made the despicable decision to load migrants onto buses and shipped them out to score cheap political points, treating these individuals as pawns,’ Hochul said. ‘Since that time, the state has deployed enormous resources toward New York City’s valiant efforts to shelter and support these nearly 100,000 migrants who have already arrived here.’

The governor compared the migrants to her own Irish grandfather, an immigrant who came to the U.S. and worked on a farm as a laborer to establish himself — saying that New York has always been among the premier destinations for immigrants seeking to set up a new life in the country. 

Hochul also acknowledged New York City’s unique legal outline, struck in 1981, that mandates the city must provide shelter for anyone who seeks it. She assured the public this special status would not be imposed on or affect other counties in the state.

Earlier this month, Hochul slammed New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ response to the migrant crisis in a 12-page letter sent to the mayor’s office.

Hochul’s lawyer, Faith E. Gay, accused the city of being slow to make timely requests for regulatory changes or inform the state of crucial decisions.