There was a New York elected official making news in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, and it wasn't one of the usual suspects.

City Council member and Republican Minority Leader Joe Borelli of Staten Island was in D. C. testifying before the House's Homeland Security Committee about New York's migrant crisis. He spoke to WNYC’s Janae Pierre about his testimony.

An interview transcript is available below. It was lightly edited for clarity.

Pierre: So, what were you hoping to convey to Congress yesterday by testifying?

Borelli: Well, I was hoping to get the message across how much money the city of New York is spending to address what amounts to a failure of federal policy at the southern border.

Gov. Kathy Hochul was on CNN last night, and she said, “We have to get the word out. That when you come to New York, we're not going to have more hotel rooms. We don't have capacity. So we have to also message properly that we're at our limit. If you're going to leave your country, go somewhere else.” That doesn't sound that different from what you and other New York Republicans are saying. In fact, many on the Hill yesterday invoked the very same concerns expressed by Mayor [Eric] Adams. So isn't there actually a good degree of bipartisan agreement on this issue? That New York can't afford to house increasing numbers of migrants indefinitely and in the meantime, you want the federal government to pay for it.

Yes, because Mayor Adams has been living in reality for about six months now, and it's great that the governor has come on board and discovered that the problem is actually far too costly and far too strenuous on our housing resources and non profit resources in the city. We got to this point because, unlike what she's saying now, the welcome mat was open for this population of people for many months, and there was encouragement of people to come here. Now we've reached a point where we're saturated and we just can't afford it and don't have the space.

Given Republicans minority status in the City Council, isn't there an opportunity for you to work on solutions with the mayor and other Democrats who are concerned about New York City's ability to sustain this migrant crisis? I'm wondering what solutions you can put forward that you think can gain some momentum in the Council?

When it started and we were talking about potentially 5,000 people or 10,000 people it wasn't such a big deal. Finally, we have the mayor coming to essentially our side to acknowledge that $6 billion in the next fiscal year is actually more than the entire budget of Phoenix, Arizona. So just put that in perspective. The largest city in America will spend $6 billion of its own taxpayer money that could actually cover every single budget item of the fifth largest city in the country, Phoenix.

Within the last day, we got the news that the Biden administration would be extending temporary protected status to people from Venezuela who've been in New York City as of July. And that'll make it easier for thousands of people to get work. Do you agree with this decision?

My objection to this is more based on the notion that we have people that have begun the process legally to emigrate. I mean, we all live in New York. We know our friends and neighbors who are perhaps foreign born. Many of them have friends and family who are waiting for green card status or visas or citizenship themselves. Why should this population necessarily be given a place on the top of the pile? That said, this is what Democrats have said would be the eventual solution to this problem. So I'm willing to call them out and say, “Okay, great. Let's see if we can get these people to work.” But at the same time, this has to alleviate some of the financial pressures on the city, which means once these folks start working, they need to be transitioned out of the shelter system that is costing us $10 million per day, and need to be placed on their own like every other New York City resident.

What else would you like to see the Biden administration do?

Put it in a historical perspective. They took office in January of 2021. That same day they repealed the “Remain in Mexico” policy. They took 89 policy decisions from Customs and Border Protection and changed the policy of how CBP addresses people when they're crossing into this country. Now we can look back over 18 months later, and see that all of their changes to our immigration policy have been an abject failure. And I'm saying it's an abject failure because we, New Yorkers are essentially paying to be the world’s refugee camp unfortunately. That’s not a success of federal policy.

So I wish the Biden administration would reverse some of the changes because we didn't have this during the Trump administration. Ok, fine. But we also didn't have this problem in the Obama administration. We didn't have this problem in the second Bush administration. We didn't have this problem at this level in the Clinton administration, et cetera, et cetera. It really has only been since the Biden administration has made several policy changes at the border.