Mayor Eric Adams said the continued influx of asylum seekers is threatening the city’s already struggling economy and has hinted at legal action against the Republican-led Southern states.
“This is eroding our economy and undermining our attempt to recover in our cities that have already been grappling with crises, from COVID to monkeypox, to crime to housing,” said Adams, who has prioritized boosting the city’s economy by relying on the companies. he said in his first full-length interview on Spectrum News/NY1 since becoming mayor.
Adam’s comments come as he faces ongoing criticism over his plan to temporarily house asylum seekers in tents critics say are in inaccessible areas prone to flooding. More than 16,000 migrants have arrived in New York City so far this year, according to estimates by the Mayor’s Office, which believes the vast majority were sent into the city by bus.
On Monday night, the mayor announced he was moving the tent city from Orchard Beach in the Bronx to Randall’s Island, a day after video surfaced showing the site flooded. On Wednesday night, Adams said his administration is doing everything it can but needs support from Washington, DC
“I’m not going to pit ordinary New Yorkers against migrants, and I’m not going to take away resources that we really need to devote to ordinary New Yorkers,” Adams said. “This is a national issue, it needs a national response, and so we are calling on Washington to respond nationally.”
Building on criticism of the mayor’s “tent city” plan, the city council offered its own solution in a press release on Wednesday, in which spokeswoman Adrienne Adams suggested the city move migrants out of the tent sites and into 10 major hotels. Among the hotels would be the Gramercy Park Hotel, which is scheduled to close permanently.
“Given its own flooding risks in the middle of hurricane season and colder temperatures from exposure to the East River during the winter, Randall’s Island is incompatible with humanitarian assistance,” the spokesman said in a statement.
The plan also envisages accelerating the transition from sheltered homeless people to permanent shelters to free up capacity.
In response, the mayor said he was open to hearing the city council’s ideas, which he told moderator Errol Louis he hadn’t seen before.
“I look forward to sitting down with the Council and Councilor Adrienne Adams, our spokeswoman, and proposing these solutions,” Adams said.
The mayor suggested racism towards him, and the mayors of two other cities — Chicago and Washington DC — may play a factor in Republican governors’ decision to send migrants to the city.
“I don’t know if it’s black mayors or if it’s just going to northern cities, but something isn’t right,” the mayor said. “I mean, we have thousands of cities in this country. Why are we specifically targeting Washington, Chicago and New York? Something is wrong here.”
He also said Sylvia Hinds-Radix, the city’s business adviser, has reviewed “every legal basis” to ensure “we’re protecting New Yorkers from this attack on our city.” He argued that the crisis is preventing the city from moving in “a direction that we think it should go”.
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