With the migrant crisis in New York City still running rampant, Mayor Eric Adams is no longer simply asking the federal government in America for help — he’s making pleas to other countries.
Adams this week has been on an international trip visiting major Latin American sources of mass migration, during which he has urged the populations of the nations he has visited to not come to the United States.
On Thursday, the mayor was in Mexico City, where he told anyone thinking of illegally crossing the border that their experience would be a “nightmare” if they were to make the cross-border journey in an attempt to claim asylum.
“I say to those who are pursuing the American dream, it should not turn into a nightmare,” Adams said, per Breitbart News.
He added, “When you see children making the long trek through a jungle and then having to live in conditions of congregate shelters, of not having the real environment that they deserve, inability to work, it just makes it extremely challenging.”
Addressing his remarks “to the people of all the countries that are migrating,” Adams declared that there “is no more room in New York.”
“Our hearts are endless, but our resources are not,” he added.
Adams’ trip is taking him through Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia. Some observers have criticized the move, saying the mayor lacks federal authority on the migrant issue, rendering the trip a waste of time and tax dollars (government funds are being used for his security detail and his travel costs are being covered by a nonprofit and by his aides).
Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration attorney and professor at Cornell Law School, told Politico, “A single trip by a politician will not dampen the flow. Mayor Adams would do better to work cooperating with the Biden administration on this complex issue, rather than striking out on his own foreign policy pursuits.”
“His gravitational force is strongest in Washington, and if he wants to make a point about Mexico, he should be doing it there,” said a Washington official who works on migrant policy and spoke with Politico on condition of anonymity.
And City Council member Alexa Avilés, a fellow Democrat, blasted Adams for the trip, arguing that “we need somebody who’s going to be focusing on finding solutions to the things we need now.”
“We don’t need a tourist person to go to the Darién water gap who thinks he’s going to convince individuals not to come to New York City. It’s absurd,” added Avilés,
On the trip, Adams received an honorary degree from the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla and awards from the governor and legislature of Puebla.
Since the spring of 2022, nearly 120,000 migrants have entered New York City, which will end up costing taxpayers about $12 billion by the middle of next year.
Amid the outcry from elected officials such as Adams, the Biden administration has recently taken some measures to reduce the flow of illegal migration. For example, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a waiver on Wednesday of over 25 federal laws, including environmental protection laws, to expedite the construction of barriers and roads along the border.
Mayorkas noted that the Rio Grande Valley Sector in southern Texas is an area of “high illegal entry.” This latest move is ironic, given that it was the Biden administration that had halted border wall construction (citing, among other factors, environmental considerations) and has even been auctioning off unused border wall.
The administration also announced Thursday that it will resume the deportation of Venezuelan migrants. This comes just days after the White House assured those migrants of protected status. The Associated Press reported on the rapid about-face:
The resumption of deportation flights comes not long after the administration increased protected status for thousands of Venezuelans who had previously arrived to the U.S., they must have entered the country before July 31 of this year to be eligible for temporary protected status.
In making the recent expansion of protections official, President Joe Biden’s administration said just this week that it had determined that “extraordinary and temporary conditions continue to prevent Venezuelan nationals from returning in safety.”
Mayorkas on Thursday addressed the contrast with the announcement just days later of more deportations, saying “we have made a determination it is safe to return Venezuelan nationals who arrived in the United States subsequent to July 31 and do not have a legal basis to remain here.”
Despite these seeming overtures to migration hawks, the White House continues to enable the migrant flow in other ways, such as through the policy of catch-and-release, under which illegal crossers of the unsecured borders are being allowed to disappear into the interior of the country in the face of overwhelmed detainment centers.
And as The New American previously reported, the White House is increasing the maximum number of refugees it will accept from Latin America and the Caribbean, from 15,000 per year to 50,000.
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