Mayor Eric Adams suddenly pulled out of his planned trip to the U.S. southern border on Saturday over what his office called security concerns.
A spokesperson for the mayor explained Saturday that the trip was off as a result of the potential security risk which the U.S. State Department had flagged. Adams had been invited by Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande, to look at the humanitarian efforts underway at the border and discuss how his administration has handled the influx of more than 184,000 newly arrived migrants, many shipped by bus from the southern border in Texas, over the past two years.
“As Lent draws to a close, our team was excited to stand with faith and humanitarian leaders who have dedicated their lives to serving the most needy among us and we were eager to discuss our work in New York City and explore new ways to collaborate with leaders in cities across the country,” said a City Hall spokesperson on March 23, “but due to safety concerns at one of the cities we were going to visit in Mexico flagged by the U.S. Department of State we have decided to pause this visit at this time.”
It would have been Adams’ second time traveling to the southern border in a little over a year, after jetting there in January 2023. Adams has taken many other trips since the migrant crisis began two years ago, including 10 jaunts to Washington DC to plead for aid from federal officials, and a multi-day excursion to Mexico and South America last fall.
During a March 22 press conference in which he announced the since-cancelled excursion to the southern border, Adams said he is “pleased” with the “national leaders” that he says have recognized the city’s efforts to provide for tens of thousands of migrants since 2022. The mayor has repeatedly said his administration’s purported success is evident in the fact that out of the 184,000 new arrivals who have checked into the city’s shelter system, over 120,000 have moved out of its care.
“We should be really pleased as New Yorkers,” Adams said. “I know this is difficult. I know it’s challenging for all of us. But we stepped up and 180,000 people coming into our city, not to support the shooting from the national government, like we deserve. We stepped up.”
But Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition and a sharp critic of the mayor’s migrant policies, alleged the trip was a “PR stunt” intended to distract New Yorkers from the mayor’s myriad legal troubles. Those include a newly detailed sexual assault suit against the mayor and at least two federal investigations targetting his 2021 campaign and one of his top advisers respectively.
