Mayor Adams on NYC’s Migrant Crisis: ‘The Numbers Are Just Unbelievable’

GEIST: “Mr. Mayor, you opened a lot eyes a couple of days ago when you announced that almost 50 percent of the hotel rooms in New York City are occupied by asylum seekers, by migrants who have come here after crossing the border into the country. And you have not been shy about saying the Biden Administration needs to do more to help you out. We are proud that we’re a sanctuary city, as you said, you’re proud that we welcome migrants here. But the system is overwhelmed. What gives here — how do you — how do you see a way out of this?”
Adams: “Yes. And when you — the exact numbers, when you look at our hotel rooms from 51 to 200 occupancy that could really handle the — the migrants, 40 — close — over — little over 40 percent of them are handled by migrant and not outside visitors, particularly around now when people come to graduation ceremonies, they go to those small hotels. It has overwhelm our system. And 65,000 of people come into the city just last week and a half ago. We have 4,200 in one week. In one day, we had 900. The numbers are just unbelievable when you think about it. Our goal is to make sure that we have a real decompression strategy at the border and a decompression strategy in the state. And really the Democrats we’re losing this argument. You know, we have an obligation to stay true to what I believe the party stands for. And I think the entire party needs to get behind how we handled this mission. Senator Schumer, Congressman Jeffries and the New York delegation, they have done an amazing job of getting resources. The resources have not gotten here, particularly through FEMA.”