Republican pols looking to cut the flow of migrants into America are seizing on Democratic Mayor Eric Adams’ comments from a Wednesday night town hall in Manhattan that the ongoing influx will “destroy New York City.”
Hizzoner made the striking declaration at the start of the Sept. 6 meeting at Riverside School for Makers and Artists on the Upper West Side. He stressed that there’s seemingly no end in sight for the migrant crisis given the sheer volume of people — roughly 10,000 newcomers — arriving the Big Apple each month, despite the continued lack of substantial assistance from Albany and Washington.
“Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this,” Adams declared to attendants. “This issue will destroy New York City.”
The city has seen over 110,100 new arrivals since spring 2022, nearly 60,000 of whom are living in its homeless shelters and emergency housing, according to the latest numbers from City Hall. Housing and otherwise providing for so many people is projected to cost the city as much as $12 billion by 2025.
“People from all over the globe have made their minds up that they’re gonna come through the southern part of the border and come into New York City,” Adams said. “And everybody’s saying it’s New York City’s problem. Every community in this city is going to be impacted. We have a $12 billion deficit that we’re going to have to cut. Every service in this city is going to be impacted.”
Adams’ dramatic statements proved to be red meat for Republican officials, who quickly took to X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) and pounced on the mayor’s comments for advocating their own arguments against providing for migrants.
“NYC is doomed. The migrant crisis is sinking us. People need to protest the feds. – Eric Adams paraphrased last night. Turn the buses around,” City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli said in a post alongside a video clip of the mayor’s remarks.
Borelli and other local Republicans have led several demonstrations against the siting of migrant shelters in different corners of the city, including his home borough of Staten Island. They’ve pushed for turning busloads of migrants (many sent by Republican governments in border states like Texas) away and closing the southern border to stem the tide — policies seen as anti-immigrant.
In his own X post, Council Member Ari Kagan (R-Brooklyn) shared the video of Adams speaking, while listing off several actions he thinks the mayor and feds should take to cut off further immigration to the city and limit the help New York provides. That includes altering the city’s right-to-shelter, which requires it to give a shelter bed to anyone seeking it — something Adams’ administration is currently trying to do in court.
“Securing our Southern border, suspending sanctuary city status, changing Right to Shelter rules, prioritizing New Yorkers, demanding criminal background & health checks, standing up to the [President] Biden’s White House,” Kagan wrote. “That’s the only way to go. NOW!”
Long Island GOP Congress Member Nick LoLotta praised Adams for being “truthful” about the “scope” of the migrant crisis.
Earlier this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office put out a news release highlighting how Adams’ relationship with President Biden has soured over the crisis, declaring the mayor “is right: ‘New York City deserves better.’” The GOP leader was referencing separate comments Adams made during a rally last week pushing Biden to expedite work authorizations for newcomers.
There’s concern among some Democrats that Republicans’ recent embrace of Adams’ statements could portend how they will be used in the 2024 election cycle, when the party is defending the presidency and hoping to retake the House.
Far-left Council Member Tiffany Cabán (Queens) slammed the mayor’s comments as “repugnant MAGA garbage,” referring to former President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again mantra.
“Ten thousand a month? In 1907, that many came in a *day* — and it MADE this city,” Cabán wrote on X. “Let’s drop this demagoguery and invest in welcoming asylum seekers and getting them work.”
Caban referred to the single-day record number of immigrant arrivals on Ellis Island in New York Harbor back on April 17, 1907, when 11,747 people went through the processing center.
Bill Neidhardt, a progressive strategist who served as a spokesperson to former Mayor Bill de Blasio, said that while the migrant crisis is an “undeniable challenge” Adams should be advocating for more help without “echoing” what he characterized as “Republican anti-immigration smears.”
Neidhardt charged that Adams fed Republican attack ads in the 2022 election cycle, where the party netted five House seats in New York, by often talking about a purported rise in crime in the city and railing against recent criminal justice reforms.
“When Eric Adams echoed Republican crime messages, Democrats in the New York media market took a hit and we lost the [House] majority,” he said. “We can’t do that again. We can’t have the New York City bully pulpit echoing Republican anti-immigration messaging. It’s gonna hurt Democrats.”
Members of Adams press team on Wednesday pointed to comments he made before the town hall on Tuesday where he laid blame for the crisis squarely on “Trump Republicans.”
“That Trump Republicans created this mess and we need to fix this mess with real immigration reform,” the mayor said.
