Democrats in New York and Washington are blaming each other for the migrant crisis plaguing the country’s major cities.
On Tuesday, according to a New York Post report, Mayor Eric Adams criticized Gov. Kathy Hochul during an informal breakfast for not forcing other parts of the state to begin receiving asylum seekers arriving from border cities.
According to Adams, Hochul is singling out the Big Apple to respond to this humanitarian crisis, an unfair situation from his point of view.
“Gov. Hochul has been a partner on subway safety, on crime, on a host of things, but I think on this issue the governor is wrong,” said Adams. “She’s the governor of the state of New York. New York City is in that state. Every county in this state should be part of this.”
According to City Hall figures from last week, New York City is serving nearly 60,000 immigrants, a number that is increasing every week with the daily arrival of hundreds of migrants who are overflowing the capacity of emergency shelters.
The municipal authorities, as well as the shelters, are completely overwhelmed by the increase in the migratory flow.
“This is a real leadership moment,” Adams said this morning. “This is a humanitarian crisis of a national proportion that this [administration has] been able to manage, but the dam has, it has broken.”
State authorities against the Biden Administration
Despite criticism from Albany, New York state officials have had no qualms about blaming the Biden administration for the crisis response and for a lack of federal support.
Last week, Gov. Hochul criticized the president in a speech demanding the White House take care of the more than 100,000 asylum seekers who have arrived in New York from the southern border since the spring.
However, the Biden administration is washing its hands and blaming city and state authorities for the immigration crisis.
In fact, on Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas simply provided vague “recommendations” from the feds to Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul in separate letters.
But Adams has been persistent with his criticism and countered the Biden administration by demanding that it comply with his requests for more funding.
“New Yorkers deserve the facts, so let’s be clear: Our requests from the federal government remain the same, and quite frankly, unaddressed,” a City Council spokesperson said.
The mayor also clarified that if this humanitarian crisis overtakes New York, the entire state would be affected.
“We are the economic engine of this state … if New York [City] goes down, the entire state goes down,” Adams said. “I want to be honest with you. This keeps me up at night.”
