New York City Mayor Eric Adams gave a dire warning to residents amid the increasing influx of migrants in the city, stating that the growing crisis was not going to get any better.
“Eventually this is going to come to a neighborhood near you, and it is — 91,000 people,” Adams said of the growing migrant crisis, according to the New York Post. Adams stressed that he and his team were working to avoid tent cities that have plagued other municipalities despite the lack of available space indoors.
Eric Adams, at a news conference at City Hall: “It’s not going to get any better … From this moment on, it’s downhill. There is no more room.”
Mr. Adams said that he wanted to “localize this madness” so that people sleeping outdoors were contained to certain parts of the city.… pic.twitter.com/C7YQT3b6KG
— Crime in NYC (@CrimeInNYC) August 1, 2023
Adams’ comments were apparently influenced by the large groups of migrants sleeping on cardboard boxes outside of the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, a relief center that is now beyond capacity. “I was at the Roosevelt on Saturday,” Adams stated, according to the New York Post. “And I went there on Sunday, people lined up around the block, hurting the businesses there. … We put buses there for cooling systems, but it’s just not sustainable,” he continued.
The Roosevelt, which was set up as an intake center and shelter for families not long after the crisis began, is legally obligated to provide beds under a decades-old “right to shelter” court settlement with City Hall. Migrants outside of the hotel, however, have been reportedly waiting for days for a bed, forcing many of them onto the streets, according to the New York Post.
Voicing his frustration with Washington D.C., Adams explained that President Joe Biden’s offer of a liaison to help field the migrant crisis wasn’t good enough, stating he’s already been clear on what the city needs in order to overcome this. “We need to allow people to work. There’s nothing more anti-American than you can’t work! We need to control the border,” Adams argued, according to the outlet. (RELATED: NYC Is Housing More Illegal Migrants Than Homeless People: REPORT)
“It’s not going to get any better – from this moment on is downhill,” Adams said of the crisis.
Adams has estimated the migrant debacle will cost NYC a total of $4.3 billion dollars in just two years. Biden, meanwhile, has only pledged $143 million to help stem the crisis, according to the New York Post.