Mayor Eric Adams raged on Friday that the ongoing surge of migrants into the Big Apple has “destroyed” the city — as he delivered his most impassioned plea yet to the Biden administration for help dealing with the flow of immigrants into the city.
Hizzoner, who earlier this week blasted the White House for turning its back on NYC, sounded the alarm on the multi-billion-dollar cost to the Big Apple budget during a visit to Washington, DC on Friday, where he plans to press the administration for federal aid.
“𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑠,” a distressed Adams said before his scheduled meeting, during a panel discussion hosted by the African American Mayors Association.
He also took aim at other elected Big Apple officials in his remarks, saying: “And none of my folks came to Washington DC to fight for the resources that’s going to undermine every agency in our city.”
The mayor’s fiery claims came ahead of a string of closed-door meetings with White House officials and Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Deanne Criswell, where he laid the migrant crisis on the table.
At one point on Friday afternoon, Biden dropped by as five mayors from the association were meeting in the White House’s Roosevelt Room – but Adams was absent.
Adams’ showing in DC comes after he ramped up his criticism of the Biden administration refusing to provide additional fiscal relief — even as the Big Apple stares down the barrel of a $4.3 billion crisis that has forced the city to house more than 56,000 migrants in over 100 taxpayer-funded shelters.
As recently as Wednesday, Adams took aim at Biden, as he accused the White House of abandoning the city and triggering “one of the largest humanitarian crises that this city has ever experienced.”
“𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒈𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒐𝒏 𝑵𝒆𝒘 𝒀𝒐𝒓𝒌 𝑪𝒊𝒕𝒚,” Adams said. “Every service in this city is going to be impacted by the asylum seeker crisis.”
City Hall has applied for $654 million in FEMA grant money to plug the city’s budget hole, but a decision won’t be handed down until May 31. The city has spent $817 million between July 2022 and March, according to the Office of Budget and Management.
Hizzoner also recently ordered city agencies to slash $4 billion from their budgets over the next four years in order to pay for the massive humanitarian effort.
