In what’s becoming a familiar refrain, Eric Adams teed off on the migrant crisis during a town hall Wednesday night.
“I’m gonna 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.” he lamented.
“This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City.”
OK.
So what are you going to do about it?
You are the mayor of New York City. This is why the people elected you — to solve problems.
To make sure that Gotham doesn’t fall.
Yet you’re acting like the guy with the “End of Days” sign outside of Penn Station, a bystander to your own disaster.
We don’t need more rants. We need solutions.
First, let’s lay the blame where it belongs: President Joe Biden.
It’s his open border policies, and complete disregard for NYC, that have fueled this crisis.
Fellow Democrat Kathy Hochul has been no help, refusing to suffer any political backlash as governor for accepting migrants outside of New York City.
It is your fellow Democrats, not Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who are behind this.
Abbott, whom you call a “madman,” bused a tiny fraction of the migrants here today, but guess what? This is where they all wanted to come anyway.
Why? Because you are beholden, not to a law or a court decision, but to an “agreement” struck with ultra-liberal groups decades ago that claims New York City has a “right to shelter.”
It is a “right” that exists nowhere else in the United States.
A “right” is a giant neon sign flashing “come on in!” to the rest of the world.
A “right” that Does. Not. Exist.
Stop it. Now. Want to finally take responsibility?
- Give a press conference. Have it simultaneously translated into Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Swahili. Migrants coming to New York City will not be given a place to stay. Put it on YouTube and TikTok.
- When single men arrive in the city, tell them we’re happy to bus them anywhere they want to go. And then that’s it. Don’t give them a place to live, don’t erect any more tent cities. Guess what? Like generations of immigrants before them, they will survive. And if it’s tough, they will tell their friends on social media that maybe it’s not worth coming to the United States.
- If families and young children arrive, give them shelter for a month. After that, they must make their own arrangements.
- For those already living in hotels and other shelters — single men get a month. Families, two months. Then you’re out. Start canceling contracts.
- Have family in Chicago, Buffalo, Wilmington, Del.? We are happy to pay the price to transport you there.
- Will there be illegal workers? Of course! The single men living on Randall’s Island already are working off the books as food delivery people and construction workers, even with free shelter and food. THIS is Bidenomics — depressing the wages of everyone, hurting the minimum wage laws and the unions he claims to represent.
- But clinging to the idea that “work permits” will solve everything is yet another unfair push that will only incentivize more illegal migration. It is not the responsibility of New York City taxpayers to feed, clothe, and shelter hundreds of thousands of people while the federal government fiddles.
- Will you be sued by out-of-their-mind progressive groups? Yes. But they will not win. “Right to shelter” is not in the state Constitution. Every city and state leader in the country will be on your side.
At the town hall, Adams said: “110,000 migrants we have to feed, clothe, house, educate the children, wash their laundry sheets, give them everything they need, health care.”
Have to?
Joe Biden isn’t providing it. Kathy Hochul isn’t. Nor are governors and mayors across the country.
The mayor likes to wax poetically about how we’re a nation of immigrants, quoting Emma Lazarus as he stares into the middle distance.
But those generations of migrants arrived with the hope of a better future in America, one that they knew would require struggle.
They lived in tiny apartments and scraped by, slowly building a better life for their children, and their children’s children.
That is the calculus of immigration.
That the endeavor is worth it despite the grind.
Having taxpayers give illegal migrants a hotel room, three meals a day, and laundry — well, who wouldn’t come here?
That has broken the traditional immigrant equation; 90% of the world would take this deal — and, as you rightly say, this is unsustainable.
Adams claimed Wednesday night, “We are all in this together, all of us,” but we’re not.
We are hostage to a mayor who refuses to stand up for the city he represents.
Mr. Mayor, you have begged and pleaded with the president for months, and all Joe Biden has done is spit in your face.
No one is coming to help.
New York City must help itself.
