Adams says pace of migrants arriving in NYC "unsustainable," calls for "decompression strategy"
NEW YORK - Mayor Eric Adams is speaking out about the migrant crisis in New York City.
Thousands of people have made their way here in hopes of a new life, but Adams says despite providing what the city can in terms of shelter, medical care and legal services, more funding from the federal government is needed.
As more than 21,000 migrants have arrived in New York City over the past few months, mainly from South America by way of Texas, Adams says any more arrivals would be "unsustainable."
The mayor of El Paso, Texas, on Friday stopped busing migrants to New York and other sanctuary cities.
The move is part of a new deal between the United States and Mexico announced last week by the White House that expels Venezuelan migrants to Mexico.
El Paso has bused more than 10,000 asylum seekers to the city since August, joining thousands of others in the city's shelter system.
"I called on the president to do a decompression strategy. We believe that strategy is working. We were seeing anywhere from nine to 10 buses in the city we saw to the last few days. We received a call from El Paso, the mayor stated that he would no longer send buses here to New York," Adams said.
This week, the city opened up a massive relief center on Randall's Island to handle the influx of migrants. The temporary tents are set to house single men, while women and families are placed in hotel shelters. But hundreds of cots lay empty Friday, as currently only a handful of migrants have checked in.
"It's like, why does one have car insurance? They don't hopefully have an accident, but they better be prepared for when. And I take my hat off to this administration and the team to realize it, that we had an unpredicatable situation that could have brought us 100,000 people into our city. We better be prepared," Adams said.
With the project alone costing the city $325,000, Adams says he will continue to call for more federal funding.
"We are going to ask for what we need, like we did, but we're also going to respond on the ground because we've learned so often that New York and New Yorkers have to depend on themselves," Adams said.
And as New York City handles its own migrant crisis, on a national level President Joe Biden warned Venezuelan migrants not to enter the U.S. He recently invoked Title 42, a measure to deny Venezuelans fleeing their crisis-torn country the chance to request asylum at the border on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
"I don't have a stable job here. I have to work hand-to-mouth every day, and that's why I am chasing the American dream," migrant Alfredo Montoya said.
Now, despite Title 42, the Biden administration has agreed to accept up to 24,000 Venezuelan migrants at U.S. airports.
At the relief center, New York City officials stress the tents are temporary as the goal is to get migrants in and out within a four day turnaround.