NEW YORK (WABC) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that the ongoing migrant crisis “will destroy NYC” during a community meeting on the Upper West Side on Wednesday night.
Adams said 110,000 asylum seekers have passed through New York City since April 2022 and the issue is creating a $12 billion budget deficit.
“And let me tell you something New Yorkers, never in my life have I had a problem that I didn’t see an ending to, I don’t see an ending to this,” Adams said. “This issue will destroy New York City.”
Adams said at one point the asylum seekers were coming from Venezuela, but now they are coming from Ecuador, Russian speakers are coming through Mexico as well as migrants from West Africa.
While other cities have been seeing a growing number of migrant arrivals, New York City has become the epicenter of the crisis.
Adams has publicly called on Gov. Kathy Hochul and President Joe Biden for help with the ongoing crisis.
“The city we knew, we’re about to lose, and we are all in this together, all of us,” Adams said. “Staten Island is saying send them out to Manhattan, Manhattan is saying send them out to Queens, Queens is saying send them out to Brooklyn.”
Central to what Adams is asking for is expediting work authorizations, so that people who are already in New York City would be able to get legal jobs and wouldn’t be forced to rely on the social safety net.
But the process for applying for asylum and a work permit is based on current immigration laws, which require a 150-day waiting period to apply for work authorization and an additional 30 days to be eligible for approval – and in recent years, it’s made more difficult because of an immense backlog.
Washington, DC, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles are among a host of other cities grappling with arrivals.
The CNN Wire contributed to this report.
ALSO READ | New rules could make finding short-term rentals like Airbnb in NYC harder
———-
* Get Eyewitness News Delivered
* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts
Submit a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News
Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.
