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NYC Mayor Eric Adams eyes cruise ships as possible place to house influx of illegal migrants

September 19, 2022 | | Print Article

With the New York shelter system crumbling over the recent influx of illegal migrants who have been bussed to the Big Apple from overwhelmed border states such as Texas, Mayor Eric Adams is eyeing cruise ships as a possible place to temporarily house the unending stream of new arrivals.

Despite opening 23 emergency shelters in the city, there still aren’t enough beds to house the migrants, and the quality of life is dropping for residents where full-time facilities are frantically trying to cope with the crisis, according to the New York Post.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and in response, Adams is borrowing a page from the Bloomberg administration, which also considered cruise ships as a possible solution to a migrant surge.


(Video: YouTube)

“We examined everything from the legality of using any type of cruise ship for temporary housing,” Adams stated during an interview on Sunday with WCBS. “We’re looking at everything to see, how do we deal with this?”

The news comes mere hours before a record nine buses — each carrying roughly 40 to 50 migrants — pulled into the city, The Post reports.

Online, the suggestion is not exactly being met with enthusiasm.

“Don’t address the problem of thousands crossing our borders everyday though!” exclaimed one user on Twitter. “Send them on a cruise instead.”

“Why not just send them on a cruise to Haiti or Honduras, as long as they’re afloat?” offered another.

“Anything but closing our borders,” a third stated.

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As American Wire has reported, Adams has been in a very public feud with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has been sending migrants by the busloads to the Big Apple since August.

“It is unimaginable what the governor of Texas has done, when you think about this country, a country that has always been open to those who were fleeing persecution,” Adams stated after the second bus, carrying just 14 migrants, arrived. “We’ve always welcomed them. And this governor is not doing that in Texas. But we are going to set the right tone of being here for these families.”

At one point, the furious mayor even threatened to send a busload of New Yorkers to the Lone Star State out of spite.

While Adams didn’t elaborate on his cruise ship plan during his CBS2 interview, he did take a swipe at the federal policy that prohibits migrants from working in the States until they secure a work permit.

“We’re saying, ‘You could come here, but you are not allowed to work,'” he said. That is unbelievable.”

“When you think about the insanity of this whole concept of telling people, ‘You’re not allowed to work,'” he continued. “Now we have a shortage in restaurant employees. Some of the people who are coming have experience in that. We may have medical professionals, we have shortage in nurses. So there are many people who are coming here, not all are coming here without having some professional criteria or understanding.”

“We need to look and see what we are facing shortages, how do we go about allowing people to take care of themselves?” he stated. “If not, we, the government, must take care of them. That just makes no sense.”

As for the cruise ships, Adams stressed that it would only be a temporary fix.

“We’re looking at that as a temporary measure, not as a permanent measure, a permanent measure to get people into housing, but at the same time with this influx, we have opened 23 emergency shelters. We are predicting with the influx of opening, probably, 38 additional emergency shelters,” he explained. “So we have to find temporary measures to address this issue.”

Melissa Fine
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