New York City Mayor Eric Adams denied that the immigration crisis it faces is an inevitable result of being a sanctuary city.
Republican governors, including Greg Abbott of Texas, have sent buses of asylum seekers to Democratic-controlled states and sanctuary cities. Republicans have argued that the action is necessary to show the rest of the country what border states are facing due to the surge in immigrants.
At a recent GOP primary debate, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley argued that the immigration crisis overwhelming Democratic cities was the inevitable result of impractical policy.
“This is hurting our schools, our hospitals. Taxpayers are paying for it. You see, these mayors are upset about this now. The only reason Eric Adams is upset now is why? So it shouldn't be a sanctuary city.” ” she said. “That's why we have to defund sanctuary cities. Now Governor Abbott finally did to them what has been happening to Texas for so long. “We have to put an end to this.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams spoke about managing the immigration crisis in a recent television appearance.
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Many potential illegal immigrants tactically use asylum law to legally enter the United States as so-called “asylum seekers,” but Adams appeared to criticize Haley for conflating the two.
“Well, national leaders should have national knowledge of policies. This has nothing to do with sanctuary cities,” he argued in an appearance on ABC's “Good Morning America.” “Immigrants and asylum seekers are given permission to enter the country, they are here legally. And when you have a national leader talking about 'sanctuary cities are the reason we have this,' he's telling me he has no knowledge of the real topic.”
Adams went on to say, “The problem is that when you allow someone to be paroled in a country, you have to have a nationwide decompression strategy to spread it across the country and not just target certain cities.”
Adams later argued that even large cities cannot support the number of immigrants arriving there.
“The general solution,” he said, is that “cities should not be handling a national crisis of this magnitude.”
“We're getting an average; just think about this number, there are weeks where we get 4,000 immigrants coming into our city,” Adams said. “When you have anywhere [from] From 2,500 to 4,000 arrive in a week, and we have to find housing, food, shelter, clothing, educate children, medical care, that is not sustainable. It's a $12 billion hole in the budget of our economy. It will affect low-income New Yorkers and affect all city services. I said it last year: we are going to begin to see the visualization of this crisis. “We've done a great job, but we can't keep up with it.”
December 18, 2023: Migrants arrive en masse in Eagle Pass, Texas, waiting to be processed. (FoxNews)
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Adams has previously disputed claims that immigrants are being sent to New York City because of its sanctuary status.
“These people have parole to enter the country, that has nothing to do with it. As long as they are here, we are obliged [to provide housing] and that is why we are in court saying that the right to housing should not have an impact on this immigration crisis,” he argued in a recent press conference.
The mayor has argued that the “right to housing” rules for New York City are now being misused and were not originally intended to force the city to provide housing for the unprecedented waves of asylum seekers arriving. .
However, some of his previous comments on mass migration had a very different tone.
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In 2019, Adams stated, “For anyone in the world fleeing hate and oppression, the quintessential city of immigrants wants you to remember: You are ALWAYS welcome here.”
