And immigration is one of the most important issues for voters in the upcoming presidential election, and San Antonio, Texas is at the forefront of the debate, often acting as a migration hub where authorities send people en route to their final destination. Joining us now for more on that from the Bloomberg City Lab Summit in Mexico City is the Mayor of San Antonio, Ron Nuremberg. Mister Mayor, great
to have some time with you. I was looking at some charts about the flow of migrants over the Southwest border from the CBP, and indeed we've seen a spike to the highest levels of immigration across that area in American history, at least in the history of the United States of America. How have you dealt with that in San Antonio? Have the people of San Antonio dealt with that influx of immigration?
Sure? Well, good morning, and thank you for having me.
I think the first thing I would say is contextualize this. This is not unique to the US southern border. This is happening all across the world. More displaced people in this period of time one hundred and fourteen million people worldwide, more since World War Two. So what's happening in the southern border is not unique. What is unique, however, is the political and legislative paralysis within our political system in
the United States. How we have handled that at the local level, since we don't deal with solutions to immigration policy, is that we've had cooperation from the Biden and Harris administration provide resources so.
That we can do two things.
We can make sure that we continue to uphold our values as a nation, but we also deal with safety and safety and resources in a way that allows people to move on to their next destination while protecting public safety. It has been a successful effort, and since that period of time when President Biden issued his executive orders, we've seen about a ninety percent decrease in traffic through our Migrant Resource Center. So it works when Congress puts solutions together.
If they yield to the politics of Donald Trump and we're left with no solutions, it's incumbent upon presidential leadership, and that's exactly what we've seen with President Biden.
Mister Mayer, I imagine you have to uphold the law, do you then when you find someone in this country illegally, work with the government to send that person back to his or her home country, or do you move that person along in the system somehow, how do you sort of stop the breaking of the law in that situation.
That's exactly right.
We cooperate with local law enforcement with federal authorities, and so folks who are in our city have been vetted and have been given asylum. Hearing dates some cases years from now, which is part of the problem when we don't have legislative solutions that were clearly laid out, and a bipart is in border bill that Trump unilaterally killed by calling his favorite senators.
So there are solutions to this at the local level.
However, we work with federal authorities to make sure that we have the resources to treat people with compassion, but also protect public safety and maintain public order.
And I want to bring the labor market into this conversation. We know, of course, at a federal level that it's still very strong. But there is an interesting story from Texas Monthly recently which actually found that Texas has eighty workers for every hundred open jobs, and that construction jobs in particular have a high degree of job openings right now. And I'm curious, I mean, how has immigration impacted that. Have you been able to fill some of those job openings with migrants.
Well, San Antonio is a international city. We are a city that has been multicultural and has roughly a fifteen percent foreign born population. So you know, immigrants are part of our labor force regardless of the career field, in high skill positions and all kinds of markets. So, of course, immigrants are part of our construction workforce as well, same
as residents of San Antonio. And we know in this period of time when there's an extensive amount of capital investment, a lot of construction going on, there is a need for construction workers, there is need for manufacturing workers. And we put a lot of our own resources, including resources from Vice President Harrison, President Biden, to help us continue to build the skills in our workforce to make sure that we can fill those jobs.
Well, I'm curious, I mean, how do you sort of building on what Matt was asking about following the law here, how do you ensure that there's going to be fair wages, safe working conditions when workers are both documented and undocumented.
Well, every single job is obviously regulated, and unfortunately we can't change Texas law. Unfortunately hasn't changed with regard to minimum wage in twenty some odd years. But you know, we make sure that we work with all industries to ensure that folks are you know, gainful employed, but are also that employers are treating their employees correctly and also you know they're properly working with all of the laws and regulations in the area.
I want to ask about housing prices. I was looking at the FREDDIEMAC House price index for San Antonio, and indeed, you see a spike in home prices right as soon as you see a spike in immigration at the start of the Biden administration. The two seem very correlated. How are you doing it keeping housing affordable for your residence?
Well, I'm not going to slip into that kind of correlation equals causation. The idea that migration has called the cause the spike and housing price is absolutely absurd. What we've seen is a tightening of the supply chains. We've seen a tightening of the labor markets. This is worldwide phenomenon. But we also know that housing prices are going up because people are coming to our city from California, from Illinois, from Texas itself. We're a great city to live in
and that's made us very desirable. We've had a strategic housing implementation plan in place that we've been implementing to make sure that the housing market is stable and it's healthy. Of course, housing costs have gone up roughly twenty five percent over the last four or five years, but relative to some of our peer cities, we're doing a good job and making sure that there's a healthy supply to the demand in housing, and that comes in all forms
and types. We know we need more rental housing for young professionals and students, but we also need home ownership options for people who are moving into their professional prime careers and also retiring in our city. But we have a good, healthy housing market in San Antonio. Of course, we're in the midst of a housing crisis worldwide. We're doing what we can to make sure it continues to be sustainable and healthy.
All right, mister Mayor, thanks very much for your time. Really appreciated. Mayor of San Antonio, Ron Nuremberg.
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