(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) New York City Mayor Eric Adams rescinded his former offer to house illegal immigrants in the Gracie Mansion, the official home for New York City mayors, the Daily Caller reported.
It was the latest in a lengthy series of mixed messages from the mayor’s office that showed Adams grappling with the immigration dilemma presented by President Joe Biden’s open-borders policies.
On one hand, the impacts on crime, tourism and the city’s expense budget—not to mention finding room to accommodate the throngs of new arrivals—have created a sense of unease for the mayor, who has failed to rise beyond the low bar set by his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, in improving the Big Apple’s standard of living.
Nonetheless, Adams has been reluctant to abandon altogether his liberal principles of virtue signaling and insisting that New York remains a so-called sanctuary city that is welcome to all. That has left him instead frantically trying to scapegoat Republicans and to pass the buck onto neighboring communities that are far less well equipped to absorb the foreign invaders.
Adams also suggested housing illegals in the spare bedrooms of existing New York residents, which might potentially run afoul of the Third Amendment’s “no quartering” rule if the government were to attempt to mandate it.
Though Adams had previously publicly offered his five-bedroom mansion for the housing of illegal immigrants, he withdrew his offer Thursday, citing “legal issues.”
The Gracie Mansion is a 224-year-old estate that has served as the traditional home to NYC governors.
According to the NYC mayor, however, his rescinded offer still contained symbolic importance.
“Leading the challenge of the migrant problem is both substantive and symbolic and as I always said, ‘Good generals lead from the front,’” Adams said.
He continued to compare himself to a good general, who leads his soldiers to war.
“They don’t send their troops into battle and ask, ‘How was the war?’ They lead them into battle. The symbolism of saying, ‘I’m willing to put a homeless family in Gracie’ is that symbolism.”
But, he noted, he is committed to always following the law, and in this case, he was ignorant of the law that prohibits using the mansion to house illegal immigrants.
“We are never going to break the law,” he said.
“And so, we’d be able to know what we can’t do and what we can’t do as a symbolism of saying, ‘I’m willing to open up the people’s house to the people of the city.’”
Adams floated the idea earlier this month, suggesting that housing illegals at the mansion would fit in with his leadership strategy, which demands “leading from the front.”
He clarified at the time that if the idea was legally feasible, he would “put a migrant family in Gracie Mansion.”
Instead of housing illegals in his own home, Adams has turned to housing them in private residences until they have been in the country long enough to receive federal aid.
“It is my vision to take the next step to this faith-based locales and then move to a private residence,” Adams said, noting that the safety and privacy of the citizens of New York City must be sacrificed to the cities sanctuary city policy.
“They have spare rooms, they have locales,” he said, explaining that New York had to find a way to keep illegals for 30 days to qualify to receive funding for illegals.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
