NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- Mayor Eric Adams warned the city faces a financial precipice as it seeks federal assistance to deal with the migrant crisis.
At a press conference Wednesday, Adams said there’s no more room or money in the city, which is only expected to get a fraction of the total $800 million set aside by the federal government to help with the crisis. Adams has said the city will need at least $1 billion this fiscal year alone.
“This is an expensive endeavor that we are in,” the mayor said. “And we have to find ways of carrying out this task without bankrupting this city.”
Adams said his team was “meeting continuously to pivot, shift, and figure out how to solve this crisis that was dropped on us.”
“Every day we start our day moving around the chess pieces to solve this crisis,” he said.
The city has been caring for more than 24,000 migrants at over 60 emergency shelters. The migrants have been bused to the city from southern states with Republican governors like Texas.
Now Colorado, which is led by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, has also started busing migrants to the city.
“We had to deal with Republican governors sending migrants to New York, now we’re dealing with Democratic governors sending migrants to New York. This is just unfair,” Adams said.
“For the governor of Colorado to say that, 'I’m going to push the problem to the city,' and didn’t even notify us—you know, everyone knows what we’re going through,” the mayor said.
Polis’ press secretary, Conor Cahill, told the Daily News that Adams comments were a mischaracterization and that Colorado was, out of “dignity and respect,” only busing migrants who asked to travel to New York.
“If the mayor is insinuating that people are being ‘sent’ like Republican Governors have been doing, he is simply incorrect,” Cahill said. “We respect the agency and authority of migrants to make their own decisions about where they are going.”
Some reporters asked the mayor if it was callous to say the city didn’t have any more room for migrants.
“What’s callous is how we’ve been ignored as a city,” he responded. “And now I have to make tough decisions on the resources of New Yorkers that cycled out of COVID.”
The mayor called on Congress and the Biden administration to work together to address the humanitarian crisis, which is expected to intensify if or when the Title 42 health measure expires. The measure was recently kept in place by the Supreme Court, but there have still been large increases in the number of migrants at the border.
“I'm not going to sit back and allow New Yorkers to carry the burden of a manmade crisis,” he said.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday he intends to visit the U.S.–Mexico border next week in what would be his first trip there since taking office. He also said he plans to make remarks about border security Thursday.
Biden has yet to lay out any systemic changes to manage an expected increase of migrants should the health restrictions end. And the president is limited in what he can do without immigration law changes. But in Congress, a bipartisan immigration bill was buried shortly before Republicans assumed control of the House.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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