House Republicans have opened a probe into suspected Chinese cyber-espionage campaigns targeting the State Department and the Commerce Department after hackers gained access to federal government communications. 

The investigation is being led by House Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer (R-KY), Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Rep. Glenn Growthman (R-WI). In two letters sent Wednesday, the lawmakers requested further information from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo after reports last month that Chinese hackers had gained access to communications from both departments. 

“According to recent reports, as part of a ‘suspected cyber-espionage campaign to access data in sensitive computer networks’ by China, the breaches reportedly occurred at over two dozen organizations, including some U.S. government agencies. The Department discovered this alleged intrusion by China on June 16, 2023, yet, you left later that evening for a trip to Beijing,” the letter to Blinken said. 

The lawmakers want a briefing on the compromise by August 9, saying they believed the recent discovery of the hacking indicated that China’s cyberattacks were becoming more advanced. 

“The incident even raises the possibility that Chinese hackers may be able to access high-level computer networks and remain undetected for months if not years,” the letter says. 

Lawmakers also requested a briefing from Raimondo in a nearly identical letter to the one sent to Blinken. 

News of the hacking, which federal officials first discovered in June, was first made public in July. 

 “Microsoft notified the department of a compromise to Microsoft’s Office 365 system, and the department took immediate action to respond,” a spokesman for the Commerce Department said last month. “We are monitoring our systems and will respond promptly should any further activity be detected.”

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In March, the White House put out a framework discussing the need for cybersecurity, warning that China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran were all working to increase their cyber capabilities.

According to the framework, China represents “the broadest, most active, and most persistent threat to both government and private sector networks and is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so.”

It added that China was pursuing “digital authoritarianism” to “shape the global Internet” into its image.

As New York City struggles to house more than 50,000 illegal immigrants who have flooded the city, officials are reportedly weighing the option to place many of them in tents in Central Park. 

Anne Williams-Isom, NYC’s deputy mayor for Health and Human Services, was asked at a press conference Wednesday about housing illegal immigrants in city parks and responded by saying that “everything is on the table” as the city reviews around 3,000 possible locations to place them, Bloomberg reported. According to the Gothamist, sources familiar with the city’s deliberations said one of those locations is Central Park, where an estimated 42 million tourists visit each year. 

“We are constantly looking at sites to see how we can accommodate people, but we need support and we think that the system is at a breaking point,” Williams-Isom said. 

Since April of last year, more than 90,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in New York City. As of last month, about 55,000 were still being housed on the city’s dime, causing New York’s homeless shelters to hit capacity. Combined with the large homeless population, the city is now sheltering a record 105,800 people.

Democratic Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly raised the alarm over the situation as officials consider extreme measures to accommodate the influx. More than 100 illegal immigrants have been sleeping on the street outside of the Roosevelt Hotel since last weekend. The hotel serves as a humanitarian relief center, housing illegal immigrants and providing them with food and access to vaccines, but the hotel has hit its capacity. 

“From this moment on, it’s downhill,” Adams said at a press conference Monday. “There is no more room.”

At the press conference, Adams warned that the illegal immigration crisis “is going to come to a neighborhood near you” as he called for more proactive measures from the federal government. 

“We need to control the border,” he added. “We need to call a state of emergency, and we need to properly fund this national crisis.”

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Adams suggested that he was opposed to erecting tents for illegal immigrants, saying the city needs to “localize this madness” and “figure out a way of how we don’t have what’s in other municipalities, where you have tent cities all over the city.”

The city estimates that it will spend $4.2 billion to house and care for illegal immigrants by the middle of 2024. Adams continues to push the Biden administration to do more to help the city deal with the crisis. City officials want the White House to grant illegal immigrants expedited work authorizations and the federal government to send newly arrived illegal immigrants to multiple cities across the country in hopes of curbing the influx in New York. 

Mairead Elordi contributed to this report.