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A Democratic mayor is imploring the Biden administration to take a tougher stance along the U.S.-Mexico border to stop a historic flood of migrants into the country after visiting El Paso, Texas, over the weekend.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams called on President Joe Biden and his administration to do more to mitigate the crisis as cities far north of the border, like his, are becoming overwhelmed with migrants, many of whom are being sent there by governors from other states. Adams was in El Paso to meet with their counterparts and survey the situation for himself.
Fox News reported: “The trip comes after the mayor said on Friday that the Big Apple is at its “breaking point” as record numbers of migrants continue to arrive. Adams submitted an emergency mutual aid request to New York state for immediate help this weekend to shelter the asylum seekers. That announcement came after the city reportedly received more than 3,100 asylum seekers in the past week – with more than 800 arriving last Thursday alone. Speaking at a Sunday afternoon press conference alongside El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, Adams said New York City wasn’t pointing at any border city in particular for exacerbating the problem.”
“We’re pointing the finger … at our national government,” Adams said. “This is a national problem. We must have real immigration reform, and we must immediately have a short-term fix of making sure that the cost of this does not fall on our local cities.”
However, Adams did blast Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Jared Polis of Colorado for “uncoordinated efforts” to bus migrants to the Big Apple, which Democratic officials have long claimed was a “sanctuary city” that refused to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts in the past.
“The governor of Colorado, who’s a Democrat, and … the governor of Texas, who’s a Republican – I think they had a bipartisan disrespect for the cities, and it was wrong, and it should not happen, and it should not continue,” Adams said.
The mayor also claimed that migrants read websites before they travel and make the trip to New York under the false impression that streets are “paved with gold” and that they “will automatically be given employment” upon arriving.
“We have to give people accurate information,” he said, adding that the federal government ought to be providing migrants with accurate information.
“Our cities are being undermined. And we don’t deserve this. Migrants don’t deserve this. And people who live in the cities don’t deserve this,” Adams proclaimed. “We expect more from our national leaders to address this issue in a real way.”
Later in the week, Adams will be traveling to Washington, D.C., to speak at the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Last week, Abbott met Biden at the airport in El Paso when the president made his first visit to the border of his presidency with a letter outlining a list of steps to take in order to mitigate the ongoing crisis. Notably, reports said that the Democratic leadership of the city cleaned up several migrant encampments ahead of Biden’s arrival.
As the two met on the tarmac, Abbott wasted no time taking advantage of the opportunity after attempting to get the president to change direction on policies for nearly two years and reimplement at least some of what former President Donald Trump put in place during his term.
“Your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20 billion too little and two years too late,” a letter Abbott gave to Biden began. “Moreover, your visit avoids the sites where mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the thousands of angry Texas property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies.
“Even the city you visit has been sanitized of the migrant camps which had overrun downtown El Paso because your Administration wants to shield you from the chaos that Texans experience on a daily basis,” the letter continued. “This chaos is the direct result of your failure to enforce the immigration laws that Congress enacted.”
