(Christian Wade, The Center Square) New York City Democrat Mayor Eric Adams is criticizing President Joe Biden amid an influx of tens of thousands of asylum seekers to the city, calling for more federal funds and allowing migrants to work legally.
At a press briefing on Wednesday, Adams ripped the Biden administration for inaction on the migrant crisis, saying the White House has “failed” New York City on the immigration issue.
“This is one of the largest humanitarian crises that this city has ever experienced. It will impact every service in the city,” Adams said. “Why isn’t every elected official in Washington, D.C., asking the national government, ‘why are you doing this to New York?’”
Over 52,000 migrants have traveled to New York City in the past year, which Adams said is affecting the city’s ability to provide basic services.
The city has set up more than 100 temporary “humanitarian” relief centers throughout the city, providing emergency housing for more than 35,000 asylum seekers. In March, Adams unveiled a new 24-hour “welcome center” in the city for migrants and a new city agency to help coordinate the arrival of asylum seekers.
Adams, who was expected to meet with federal officials in Washington on Thursday, urged the president to provide New York City with funding and allow migrants work authorizations, which he said the Biden administration could do “with the stroke of a pen.”
He blamed the city’s $4.2 million budget shortfall on the migrant crisis, which he said has forced him to direct city departments and agencies to slash their spending by 4% for the next fiscal year.
“This is impacting our schools, public safety, our ability to take care of those who were already in shelters,” Adams said. “This is impacting the entire city. And the numbers don’t lie.”
Adams said the city’s agricultural, food service, transportation and manufacturing fields are desperately looking for more workers, and those jobs could be filled by migrants if the federal government loosened the employment rules.
“We have an absence of employees in these fields. We have a willingness of a population that wants to fill these jobs. We need to bring that together,” he said.
Nationwide, more than 3.3 million people have been apprehended or reported evading law enforcement illegally entering the U.S. from over 150 countries in fiscal 2022, according to data obtained by The Center Square.
Few, roughly one out of seven, have been expelled under Title 42, a Trump-era pandemic-related rule that allowed the federal government to expel migrants seeking asylum at the border, the data shows.
But hundreds of thousands more migrants have been allowed to seek asylum and other protections, according to immigration officials.
