Eric Adams Warns Migrant Crisis Could Cost NYC as Much as $2 Billion
Mayor Eric Adams on Friday warned the influx of migrants to New York City may cost the Big Apple up to $2 billion — twice what he had previously predicted.
“Our price tag could be anywhere from $1.5 to $2 billion. That’s the price tag that we are facing,” Adams said during a Caribbean Power Jam Radio interview.
Adams had previously requested $1 billion from the Biden administration to address the issue.
“We have to ask ourselves, where we [were] already dealing with a potential $5, $6 billion budget deficit in the outyears. Where does that money come from?” Adams said.
“That money comes from our schools. It comes from our public safety, our hospitals, our infrastructure, our ACS services, those are our tax dollars that it’s coming from and we got to see an impact in every service we have in the city,” Adams said. “And that is just inhumane on the part of the national government. And I really believe it’s irresponsible, that we have not had a real national response to what’s happening at our border.”
One day earlier, Adams announced cuts to nearly every city agency, according to the New York Post.
On Friday, Adams also submitted an emergency mutual aid request to New York State for help sheltering the migrants this weekend, saying the city is at its “breaking point” after having received more than 3,100 asylum seekers in the past week alone.
“Based off our projections, we anticipate being unable to continue sheltering arriving asylum seekers on our own and have submitted an emergency mutual aid request to the State of New York beginning this weekend,” he said in a statement. “This type of request, reserved only for dire emergencies, asks the state for support to shelter arriving asylum seekers as the city faces an immediate need for additional capacity. Our initial request is for shelter to accommodate 500 asylum seekers, but, as New York City continues to see numbers balloon, this estimate will increase as well.”
Adams headed to El Paso, Texas, for the weekend to visit the southern border.
