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New York Mayor Eric Adams called the border crisis a “disaster” during his trip to El Paso over the weekend, after saying that 40,200 immigrants had arrived in the city since last spring and that a larger influx could cost the Big Apple $2 billion.
‘Why isn’t this considered a disaster? This is a crisis,’ Adams told The New York Post at the end of his visit to the border.
“No one is coordinating this national effort,” he said from Texas on Sunday night, before revealing that he would travel to Washington DC this week to attend the US Conference of Mayors and devise a “real strategy” to address the issue.
Adams also attacked the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to which he had already made a request for one billion dollars. ‘FEMA needs to step up. That’s his job,’ she said.
His comments were in stark contrast to the mayor’s earlier claim on Twitter that New York City would always welcome immigrants.
Eric Adams toured migrant shelters and visited the southern border en route to El Paso before calling the situation a ‘disaster’
Despite expressing his frustration, Adams (pictured during his trip to El Paso this weekend) did not directly criticize Joe Biden or address New York City’s sanctuary city policy.
Adams estimated last week that nearly 500 immigrants were arriving in the city each day, a rate that could no longer be sustained.
Despite expressing such frustration, Adams has not directly criticized Biden and did not say whether he will arrange a meeting with the president to get the funding increase he requested.
He was criticized Monday for not explicitly blaming Biden, a fellow Democrat, for the problem.
Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican from parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island, attacked him for referring to the crisis simply as a national problem and not naming the president.
“The mayor is right in the sense that he is saying that this is a national crisis, but he needs to say that this is a national crisis created by Joe Biden,” Malliotakis told Fox News.
‘Joe Biden implemented the policies through an executive order that created this mess. This was not happening under President Trump. It was not happening under President Obama, and it has reached a record level,” he said.
People wait for children returning from school at the Row hotel in Manhattan, which is used to house immigrants.
Another problem that Adams has not addressed is New York City’s sanctuary city policy, part of which involved a lack of cooperation with federal authorities to reduce illegal immigration.
“Yesterday you saw people saying they wanted to go to New York City because they heard that the city was hosting immigrants and that they were taking care of their needs,” Malliotakis said.
While giving a speech in Texas, Adams suggested that the overwhelming influx of immigrants into his city was having detrimental effects on its citizens.
Our cities are being undermined. We don’t deserve this. Migrants don’t deserve this and people living in cities don’t deserve this. There is no space in New York anymore,’ he said.
Nicole Malliotakis (pictured last November), a Republican representative for parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island, attacked Adams for not blaming Biden for the crisis.
In 2017, Adams tweeted: “We have always been welcoming to immigrants in New York City. None of that is going to change.”
At points, he has suggested that the city’s tight budget means the immigration crisis will force it to cut basic services.
Adams, who officially declared a state of emergency in October over the flood of immigrants in the city, has expressed a changing and inconsistent attitude toward immigrants arriving in his city.
In a 2017 tweet, he said: “We have always welcomed immigrants to New York City. None of that is going to change.
The city has historically provided migrants with shelter, food and clothing and has argued in the past that they should be allowed to assimilate faster and more easily.
But last week, the mayor said New York had reached its “breaking point,” with 400 asylum seekers arriving every day.
In addition to requests for federal aid and appealing to the White House, he submitted an emergency mutual aid request to the state and Gov. Kathy Hochul, asking for immediate help in sheltering incoming immigrants.
“We are at our breaking point,” Adams said. “Based on our projections, we anticipate that we will no longer be able to house asylum seekers who arrive on our own.
“Our initial application is for a shelter to accommodate 500 asylum seekers, but as New York City continues to see the numbers skyrocket, this estimate will rise as well.”
The plea came a week after Colorado joined the list of states transporting immigrants to New York City to ease the burden on those near the southern border.