(Headline USA) Despite complaining about the financial toll the open-border crisis was taking on New York City, Mayor Eric Adams launched a pilot program this month to provide asylum seekers with pre-paid credit cards, the New York Post reported.
The $53 million program, run by New Jersey-based Mobility Capital Finance, will provide illegal immigrants who arrive in New York City with the cards to use on food and other basic amenities.
The city claims the cards can only be used at bodegas, grocery stores, supermarkets and convenient stores. It said migrants would have to sign an affidavit agreeing to spend the funds only on food and baby supplies or they would be kicked out of the program.
The amount on each credit card would vary, depending on the size of the family and whether they were employed, according to the contract with Mobility Capital Finance. A family of four would be offered $1,000 per month.
The cards would get refilled every 28 days.
The initiative will start with 500 migrant families staying at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown, Manhattan and replace the current food service offered to the migrants. If it is successful, it will expand to all migrant families who arrive in New York and are put up in short-term hotels, which is around 15,000 migrants currently.
“Not only will this provide families with the ability to purchase fresh food for their culturally relevant diets and the baby supplies of their choosing, but the pilot program is expected to save New York City more than $600,000 per month, or more than $7.2 million annually,” Adams spokesperson Kayla Mamelak said in a statement.
Mamelak did not specify how the additional $53 million in spending would ultimately save the city money.
Adams has demanded additional funding from the Biden administration to manage the influx of migrants to the city, warning the economic consequences of mass illegal immigration would “destroy” New York City.
His office did not explain how continuing to provide financial incentives for migrants to travel to New York would reduce the flow of migration.
