NYC Mayor Eric Adams — who was federally indicted on Wednesday — has spent the latter half of his term battling with the White House over the migrant crisis, with Hizzoner repeatedly accusing President Biden of abandoning the Big Apple on its own.
“Help is not on the way,” Adams told reporters after meeting with Biden to discuss the crisis in December 2023 — and his rhetoric toward the White House has only gotten grimmer since then.
“The national government has turned its back on New York City”, he said months later, adding that “every service in this city is going to be affected by the refugee crisis.”
The comments were just some of a long chorus of complaints from increasingly frustrated Adams about the Biden administration — who at one point called on New Yorkers to march on D.C. in protest of migrants being sent to the Big Apple by the thousands.
The city had spent at least $5.5 billion on the migrant crisis as of August, which has been used to house more than 250,000 migrants through 2022.
The crisis is expected to cost the city more than $12 billion by 2026, but by July the losses had already exceeded budget estimates by hundreds of millions of dollars by that time.
City Hall estimates the amount represents about 69% of the total cost of the migrant crisis, while the state would cover 30%. In the meantime, this is what is expected of the federal government To cover 1% of it.
Adams called Washington’s refusal to provide more cash “shocking,” and described how during multiple meetings with the Biden administration he has not been given a concrete commitment for more aid.
“I'm lost. I'm confused as to why we're still, almost 20 months later, talking about this issue and it's inundated the city,” Adams told Fox 5 in December 2023.
Months later in August Adams declared that “we are past our breaking point”, but a year later the crisis shows no sign of abating.
The city has for decades claimed “sanctuary city” status — meaning it refuses to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, even when migrant fugitives are identified — and it was codified under Adams’ predecessor, Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Migrants first began arriving nearly two years ago — mostly across the southern border.
Some were being sent on buses on the orders of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who in the spring of 2022 launched a campaign to send migrants from his state to cities that had declared themselves sanctuary.
However, Adams was not happy with the move, and accused Abbott of “harming black-run cities” and using human beings as political pawns.
Months after Abbott introduced the bus service, Adams complained that both political parties were “doing nothing” to stop the crisis.
“The far right is doing the wrong thing. The far left is doing nothing,” he said in October 2022.
“I mean, this peace — I can’t believe the peace I’m hearing.”
But the Biden administration has also actively participated in sending migrants to Gotham.
While nearly 37,000 of the city's migrants were bused in from Texas by spring 2024, the Department of Homeland Security has Around 33,000 migrants were brought to the city – According to findings by the Center for Immigration Studies, the move was made without any coordination with City Hall.
