New York City has been “devastated by the immigrant crisis,” Eric Adams Friday told an audience in Washington, D.C., as he set about securing federal funding for his city.
The mayor earlier this week accused the Biden administration of turning its back on New York, which currently houses 34,800 immigrants in 112 shelters. In the past 12 months, more than 56,000 migrants have arrived in the city.
Adams ordered city agencies to cut $4 billion from their budgets over the next four years to pay for the humanitarian effort.
In the eight months through March, the city spent $817 million dealing with the surge in arrivals — many of whom were bussed into New York City under a scheme put in place by the governors of Texas and Arizona, to make Democrats understand their struggle.
“The city is being destroyed because of the immigrant crisis,” Adams said on Friday before a panel discussion.
Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, was seen on Friday speaking at the Association of African American Mayors meeting, in Washington, DC.
Adams (left) said not enough is being done to help New York City with regard to immigrants
On Friday, Biden met with some of the mayors — but Adams was not present
He angrily charged at his colleagues, “And none of my family has ever come to Washington, D.C., to fight for resources that will undermine every agency in our city.”
Adams told the audience he would have presided over a miraculous post-pandemic recovery, had it not been for immigrant costs.
“If you remove the $4.2 billion that was brought down in my city because of the mishandling of an asylum seeker case, you probably have witnessed one of the largest financial shifts in the history of New York City,” he said.
His comments echo those he made on Wednesday, when he accused the Biden administration of not doing enough to prevent illegal border crossings, causing “one of the biggest humanitarian crises this city has ever experienced.”
Adams said Joe Biden, who is pictured Friday, has not done enough to secure the border
Some of the many immigrants flown to New York from the US southern border sit among their luggage and sleeping bags outside the Watson Hotel on West 57th Street in February.
There are currently 34,000 immigrants in New York City who reside in 112 shelters
“The national government has turned its back on New York City. Every service in this city will be affected by the asylum seekers crisis,” he added.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has called on state, city and federal authorities to split the costs of dealing with immigrants equally.
The city has applied for $654 million in FEMA grant money, but a decision won’t be made until May 31.
The mayor has repeatedly expressed frustration with the lack of meaningful help from the Biden administration to help curb a problem that has burdened the city’s resources and residents for months.
Now, two more migrant shelters are set to pop up in a busy part of town.
The vacant Candler Tower office building in Times Square that was once home to a 24-hour McDonald’s will now house hundreds if not thousands of the city’s illegal immigrants.
The fast food restaurant, once described as one of the busiest and most profitable models of McDonald’s, closed during the June 2020 lockdowns due to COVID-19.
The building’s owner, UK-based investment firm EPIC, signed the title deed last March to avoid foreclosure, according to a report from the New York Post.
The other shelter is located in a six-story commercial building in Brooklyn.
The McDonald’s restaurants that closed last year in Times Square will now be used to house the 30,000 immigrants the city now cares about.
Adams was photographed in February at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, which is now used to house immigrants, but was then used to house homeless residents of New York City.
Most of the other emergency shelters used to house migrants across the city are located in hotels.
An Indian immigrant who works at a newsstand on 42nd Street near a defunct McDonald’s said immigrants may be a boon to his business, but they may also increase crime in the tourist-packed area.
Hussein, 49, said, according to the the post.
If immigrants act nice then there will be no problem… If they are given jobs then there will be no problem. When they are given everything and have nothing to do, that’s when you run into problems.
City Councilman Robert Holden of Queens, a Democrat, expressed frustration with the mayor’s move to house more immigrants — further stretching the city’s already depleted resources.
We will now house them in our retail and commercial spaces. Where does it end and when does the taxpayer get a break here? ‘ Asked.
“This is a problem created by the Biden administration and the government must foot the bill and have a plan to feed and house them,” he added.
“We continue to do more than any other city in the nation, but as the number of asylum seekers continues to grow, we are in dire need of support from both our federal and state governments,” the mayor said recently.
It was also recently revealed that the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement office is “fully booked through October 2032” to handle immigrants seeking asylum in the United States.
The nearly decade-long backlog means that some immigrants without valid asylum claims may choose New York City in an effort to avoid facing an immigration judge, perhaps forever.
