New York City Mayor Eric Adams pledged to create a coalition with other mayors across the country to urge the federal government to address the migrant crisis at the southern border.
Adams traveled to Texas over the weekend to visit the southern border and meet with El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser to discuss the surge of immigrants crossing into the country every day. El Paso is one of several border towns that have transported immigrants on buses to northern cities such as New York, prompting Adams to warn the influx may overwhelm his city’s resources.
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“I knew it was time for me not to try to handle this problem from the city but to come in to interact with the mayors across the country,” Adams said. “This has fallen on our cities. And I am now going to coordinate my mayors across the entire country to say: How do we respond to this directly?”
As part of this effort, Adams pledged to travel to Washington, D.C., later this week to meet with the United States Conference of Mayors and press the federal government to address the issue.
Adams’s trip came just one week after President Joe Biden visited El Paso, marking his first trip to the southern border since becoming president.
New York City spent roughly $366 million on services for asylum-seekers in 2022, and Adams expects that number to rise to roughly $2 billion by June, according to the mayor. Of that, only $8 million came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, prompting Adams to call on the agency for more assistance.
“This is a national crisis. FEMA deals with national crises,” Adams said. “FEMA must step up, and there should be one coordinator to coordinate everything that is happening dealing with migrants and asylum-seekers in our country.”
Several Democratic mayors praised Adams for his border trip, including Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who has also received a large number of immigrants being transported north from border towns.
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“Yesterday, @NYCMayor traveled to the border to draw attention to how the migrant crisis is impacting cities like New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and others,” Lightfoot tweeted on Sunday. “I agree wholeheartedly with Mayor Adams that this is a national crisis that demands a national solution.”
It’s not clear which cities are likely to join Adams’s mayoral coalition, but the New York Democrat indicated he’s open to meeting with more government leaders to address the issue.
“Today, it’s El Paso,” he said. “Tomorrow, it could be their cities.”
