News/Commentary

NYC Mayor Eric Adams gets loads of praise, heaps of criticism after visit to border: ‘No… you don’t get a blank check’

January 17, 2023 | | Print Article

After complaining for months that his “sanctuary city” can not handle another illegal migrant, Mayor Eric Adams headed to El Paso, Texas — arguably ground zero for the nation’s southern border crisis — on Sunday, where he demanded “a national solution” to what is “a national crisis.”

The trip followed an emergency mutual aid request to New York State “for immediate help this weekend to shelter arriving asylum seekers.”

“We are now seeing more people arrive than we have ever seen – averaging over 400 people each day this last week, with 835 asylum seekers arriving on one single day alone, the largest single-day arrival we’ve seen to date,” Adams said in a statement. “All this is pushing New York City to the brink.”

According to Adams, he and El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser are “on the front lines, and we need federal support.”

Adams’s press secretary, Fabien Levy, covered much of the trip on Twitter.

“This morning, @NYCMayor met with El Paso Mayor Leeser and other city officials to discuss how the migrant crisis has affected the local community, and how cities can band together to call on the federal government to take the lead on tackling this crisis,” Levy reported.

According to Nicole Gelinas of the New York Post, Adams’ big takeaway from his visit is that he needs “a blank multibillion-dollar check from Washington.”

In his request for emergency aid, Adams stated that, without it, New York City would no longer be able to shelter the asylum seekers who are flooding into the Big Apple.

“We are at our breaking point,” Adams said. “Based off our projections, we anticipate being unable to continue sheltering arriving asylum seekers on our own and have submitted an emergency mutual aid request to the State of New York beginning this weekend.”

“This type of request, reserved only for dire emergencies, asks the state for support to shelter arriving asylum seekers as the city faces an immediate need for additional capacity,” he continued. “Our initial request is for shelter to accommodate 500 asylum seekers, but, as New York City continues to see numbers balloon, this estimate will increase as well.”

“The absence of sorely needed federal immigration reform should not mean that this humanitarian crisis falls only on the shoulders of cities,” Adams stated. “We need support and aid from our federal and state partners and look forward to working together to meet this crisis head-on.”

If the Biden administration bails him out, Gelinas says, it would be rewarding “broken” systems.

“Sorry, no,” Gelinas writes in response to Hizzoner’s demands. “A blank check for an uncapped number of migrants would reward New York for its broken hotel-shelter system and broken emergency-contracting system.”

Yes, she admits, “it’s absolutely true Biden created this mess or at least made it much worse,” but, she notes, “New York City has created a mess of its own.”

She points to Adams’ comments following stops at various El Paso locations.

“We learned today, which was very informative and that’s why it was important to come here, that there are websites that are advertising that New York City….basically the streets are paved with gold. That there’s automatic employment, that you’re automatically going to be living in a hotel,” he said.


(Video: YouTube)

“Gee, how would migrants get that impression?” Gelinas asks. “Declaring an ’emergency’ in August over the number of migrants seeking shelter, then 4,000, Adams avowed the city has a ‘legal and moral mandate to provide quality shelter’ — to everyone.”

As BizPac Review reported, New York elected to house illegal migrants in swanky, four-star, $500/night hotel rooms in the city, where they promptly trashed the accommodations.

“The city began directing migrants to hotels, including high-profile Times Square locations, a decision that made global headlines. This sent a terrible message,” Gelinas writes. “To have a prayer of meeting its purported legal obligation to house tens of thousands of new migrants — an obligation the mayor has said he won’t challenge — the city can’t rely on hotel rooms. It must rely on congregate shelter.”

“If you think this sounds cruel, what’s your better idea?” she adds. “What’s cruel is unattainable promises.”

It isn’t just a matter of money, Gelinas says, it’s a matter of math.

“New York City has only 120,000 hotel rooms,” she explains. “The number of migrants seeking aid from the city is at least 40,000 and, with sometimes more than 800 newcomers a day, likely to hit six figures this year.”

But over on Fox News, Adams is receiving praise for “taking the time to meet with migrants personally.”

(Video: Fox News)

“Adams saw this chaos firsthand,” Todd Pirro said on Monday’s broadcast of “Fox & Friends First.”

“Got a much different view than President Biden,” he added, referring to the President’s “sanitized” visit earlier this month.

In the segment, the former mayor of El Paso, U.S. Marshal Robert Almonte, also gave Adams the thumbs up, saying he “got a dose of reality.”

“Good on him,” Pirro said. “But a little bit late to the party for Mayor Eric Adams. We were talking about this for many months.”

 

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Melissa Fine
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