https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/facts-not-fear-how-welcoming-immigrants-benefits-new-york-city/

FACT: This is not an unprecedented surge in immigration

While New York City is seeing an unprecedented number of asylum seekers relying on the City’s shelter system, the U.S. and New York City have seen periods of comparable or greater growth in our immigrant population in the past:

The immigrant population in the U.S. has only risen marginally since 2021 — the growth of our immigrant population in 2022 is 2 million less than what the U.S. Census Bureau previously projected.
The period from 2012 to 2022 saw slower growth in the immigrant share of the population than the 2000s, 1990s, 1980s and 1970s.
In the 1990s, the U.S. immigrant population grew exponentially. The number of immigrants in the U.S. grew from 19 million to over 30 million between 1990-2000, an almost 5% increase in immigrants as a share of the total U.S. population.

The undocumented population in the U.S. has largely remained stable over the past 15 years.

The undocumented population peaked in 2007. The number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. rose from an estimated 3.5 million people to a high of 12 million people between 1990 and 2007.
Since 2007 until 2021, the undocumented population in the United States has remained stable. It has not grown, but rather hovered around 11 million people nationwide for the last 15 years.
The undocumented population in New York City has been declining over the last decade. Approximately 476,000 undocumented immigrants lived in NYC in 2019, the most recent year data is available, as compared to 504,000 in 2018.

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I'm not denying that it's not an issue, and a serious one at that, but we as a country have more pressing issues. I think housing as a whole is much more of a crisis, and the reason why immigrants seem so much more visible now then they have in the past. NYC has always struggled with adequate housing for lower and middle class people, and now the entire country is being buried under high interest rates for buying and higher rents for renting, which of course leads to less housing for people whom are under even more financial strain and the added pressure of not being documented.