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New York Mayor Eric Adams said Wednesday that the migrants arriving rapidly in New York will “destroy” his city.
The mayor’s comments marked a significant escalation in his rhetoric and offered a new challenge to the Biden administration, which has failed to stop the surge of people and has failed to offer the kind of financial support Mr. Adams and other local officials say is needed to accommodate all the new arrivals.
“I don’t see an ending to this,” Mr. Adams said at a community meeting. “This issue will destroy New York City.”
He said the city is getting 10,000 new migrants a month, which he has calculated will cost the city $12 billion over three years to live up to local laws that guarantee housing and other government services to everyone, regardless of legal status.
“Every service in this city is going to be impacted,” the Democratic mayor said.
He complained about “what they’re trying to do to us” — seemingly a jab at the Biden administration.
“It’s going to come to your neighborhoods. All of us are going to be impacted by this,” he said. “The city we knew, we’re about to lose.”
That sounded strikingly similar to the complaints of some Republicans, who say the pressing numbers of newcomers overwhelm the ability of the U.S. to welcome and assimilate them all.
Mr. Adams’ new rhetoric on the issue is a worrying sign for President Biden, who has for the most part tried to ignore the border chaos.
The mayor said he’s been talking about the issue for more than a year, but he said the demographics have changed. The flow was once mostly Venezuelans, but now includes people from across the Western Hemisphere, as well as Africa and Russia.
Immigrant rights groups blasted Mr. Adams for his comments, with several labeling it “fear-mongering.”
Mr. Adams’ comments come as city residents complain of being harassed by migrants, and as reports of criminal entanglements grow.
That includes assaults on police officers and, according to The New York Post, a Venezuelan man who arrived in the city in late June and has already attacked three strangers and two cops, stolen from several stores and notched six arrests.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who first bused migrants to New York and Washington last year, said his goal was to make other parts of the country feel some of the pain that Texas and other border states have been feeling for years.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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