New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently indicated that the Big Apple is “out of room” amid the ongoing migrant crisis that is straining the city’s resources. Reportedly, over 160,000 migrants have arrived in the city since 2022 during a massive spike in illegal border crossing throughout the Biden administration.
During a recent interview, Mayor Adams warned that at the rate migrants are pouring into his city, they would be sleeping in the streets. The mayor stressed that New York City is running out of space, not as an exaggeration or figure of speech, but in the most literal sense. “We’re not just saying we’re out of room as a sound bite — we’re out of room, literally,” Adams said. “People are going to be eventually sleeping on the streets.”
Adams also explained that he cannot legally change New York City’s sanctuary city designation. Therefore, they can’t legally prevent illegal immigrants from entering the city or turn them over to Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement (ICE) agents. “We cannot by law tell someone if they come into the city, ‘You can’t come into the city,’” said Adams. “We can’t even turn them over to ICE … the law states that we cannot notify ICE. I cannot break the law and enforce the law.”
Adams has thoroughly illustrated the dire situation New York City faces, as the ensuing migrant crisis is exhausting its resources at a costly rate. The mayor indicated that arriving migrants can expect no more than the provision of “food, shelter, and clothing” as services going forward. He has also stated that the overwhelming scale of the inflow of migrants will soon begin to degrade the quality of life in the city.
“We’ve seen the erosion of the quality of life that we’ve improved on in such a short period of time of this administration. And we have been impacted,” Adams explained. “For, for many months, we were able to keep the visualization of this crisis from hitting our streets. But we have reached a breaking point, we no longer able to do that, because of the volume in numbers,” illustrating the sheer volume of people flowing into the city.
The problem New York has on its hands has been at dangerous levels for months, as the American Tribune reported on comments from Adams last year where he indicated he “didn’t see an ending to” this issue that “will destroy New York City.”
“Let me tell you something, New Yorkers. Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this. I don’t see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City,” he said. “And everyone is saying, ‘It’s New York City’s problem.’ Every community in this city is going to be impacted. We have a $12 billion deficit that we’re going to have to cut every service in this city is going to be impacted. All of us,” he added, highlighting the potential impact on residents.
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During a press conference, a reporter asks the NYC Mayor Eric Adams about migrants sleeping on the streets. He states that the city council passed a law to make it legal in the streets and its out of his power to fix
" Someone can sleep in front of your right… pic.twitter.com/SWABbPevvm— Viral News NYC (@ViralNewsNYC) October 31, 2023
Featured image credit: Governor Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, and MTA Chair & CEO Janno Lieber announce a Subway Safety Plan at Fulton Transit Center on Fri., February 18, 2022…(Marc A. Hermann / MTA)