New York City is full, mayor tells migrants

New York Mayor Eric Adams has announced there is “no room” for illegal immigrants in New York City, begging President Joe Biden’s administration to fix the “national emergency” at the Mexican border during a press conference in El Paso on Sunday.

“Now is the time for the national government to do its job,” the mayor said, referring to the migrant crisis that has reached unprecedented levels under Biden.

Adams said it was “unfair” that cities like New York and Chicago should have to host so many migrants and urged the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to oversee a nationwide “coordinated response.”

In a statement on Friday, Adams also said “the absence of sorely needed federal immigration reform should not mean that this humanitarian crisis falls only on the shoulders of cities.” 

He urged the White House to counteract the misinformation he insisted was giving many migrants a “false impression” of the conditions they could expect in New York. Websites suggesting “basically the streets are paved with gold,” where everyone gets “automatic employment” and “you’re automatically going to be living in a hotel” must be countered by “accurate information,” he said.

The mayor traveled to El Paso to visit the border just days after he announced budget cuts for every city agency, warning the migrant deluge could cost New York as much as $2 billion. Adams had already begged New York Governor Kathy Hochul for emergency aid last week, insisting the city was at “breaking point” with 3,100 illegal immigrants arriving in a single week and a total of 40,000 having arrived since last spring.

Resentment has built among native New Yorkers as the mayor slashes the budgets of much-needed services, which he admitted could impact the city’s public safety. With affordable housing already in short supply before the migrants began arriving, homelessness has also reached epidemic proportions.

Adams may have invited the crisis when he reportedly told El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser in September that New York would welcome the border city’s surplus migrants. However, the city’s government quickly became unable to manage the influx, declaring a state of emergency in October and begging the White House for $1 billion in federal aid that it has thus far refused to commit.