New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the city has “no more room for migrants” and “our cup has basically runneth over,” after it welcomed approximately 90,000 migrants since April 2022.
“We stated several months ago that we have reached full capacity and that full capacity was verbalized, and now New York is just going to be visually actualized. We’re going to see how much of our cup has basically runneth over. We have no more room in the city, and we need help,” Adams said in a press conference Wednesday.
“We have no more room in the city, and we need help.”
During Wednesday’s presser, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a new restriction stay for adult migrants/asylum seekers in city shelters. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News via Getty Images)
Migrants are pictured in the processing area at Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News via Getty Images)
The mayor, a Democrat, shifted responsibility to the federal and state government for not providing enough aid for the city to offer housing and other social services for the thousands of new arrivals.
“We cannot continue to absorb tens of thousands of newcomers on our own without the help of the state and federal government,” Adams said.
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Adams admitted that offering temporary shelter, placing migrants in hotels, school gymnasiums is “not sustainable,” saying that its “wrong” that the Big Apple is “carrying the weight” of the ongoing migrant crisis.
“This cannot continue, is not sustainable, and we’re not going to pretend as though it is sustainable,” the mayor said. “This is wrong that New York City is carrying the weight of a national problem.”
“This is wrong that New York City is carrying the weight of a national problem.”
Under Adam’s new plan to tackle the migrant crisis, he announced that single adult migrants will only be able to stay in the city’s shelters for 60 days, and will need to reapply for a space after that.
Adams said Wednesday the city would try to help migrants find housing with relatives and friends.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a press conference at City Hall, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News via Getty Images)
Adams, who adamantly criticized Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s bussing program, which sent migrants from the southern border to the Big Apple and other major U.S. cities, commended New York City for responding to the migrants arrival with “humanity” and “compassion.”
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“Unlike Texas, where Governor Abbott is ordering troops to push migrant children into the Rio Grande and deny asylum seekers drinking water, our city has continued to respond with humanity and compassion,” Adams said.
Texas officials are investigating claims by a state trooper that superiors ordered officers on the border to push migrants back into the Rio Grande and deny them water.
People wait in line with other relatives of undocumented families at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, June 25, 2023. (YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images, File)
NYC officials revealed in June they were at a “tipping point” with over migrants, outnumbering even the homeless in the city.
“You see from today’s numbers that we have reached a tipping point,” Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom said during a briefing in June. “We now have more asylum seekers in our care than longtime New Yorkers … who were in our existing DHS system.”
“We all are facing a humanitarian crisis right here in the five boroughs,” said Williams-Isom said, who called on federal partners to help in the form of financial aid and national coordination.
Since spring 2022, approximately 90,000 asylum seekers — most entering the U.S. from the southern border — poured into New York City’s intake system, according to Adams.
