Mayor Adams abruptly cancels migrant crisis meeting at White House to ‘deal with a matter’ in NYC

Mayor Eric Adams has abruptly canceled a string of meetings he was supposed to hold Thursday in Washington, D.C. with White House officials and congressional lawmakers to discuss New York City’s worsening migrant crisis.

Ten minutes after Adams’ sit-down with senior Biden administration officials was supposed to have started at the White House, City Hall announced he had canceled all his plans for the day.

“The mayor is returning to New York City to address a matter,” City Hall spokeswoman Kayla Mamelak said. She declined to elaborate on the matter, but said his meetings “will be rescheduled as soon as possible.”

The last-minute cancelation came after Adams posted a video of himself on Twitter onboard a plane en route to the nation’s capital.

“We are headed to D.C. to meet with our congressional delegation and the White House to address this real issue with the asylum and migrant issue in our city, and we’ll keep you updated as the day goes,” the mayor said in the video.

Adams’ confab with White House officials was expected to be attended by his fellow Democratic mayors of Chicago and Denver, who are dealing with large influxes of migrants in their cities, too.

White House spokeswoman Dhara Nayyar said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston were still expected to attend the meeting, which she described as focused on “our joint efforts regarding recently arrived migrants.”

After the White House meet, the trio of mayors was supposed to sit down with members of the House and Senate to talk about migrant crisis matters. Multiple Capitol Hill sources said members of New York City’s House delegation did not receive notices about Adams’ cancelation.

According to NYPD sources, Adams’ 11th hour return to New York does not appear related to any public safety emergencies unfolding in the city.

“There’s nothing on our end,” a high-ranking NYPD source told the Daily News.

Adams’ would-be visit to Washington comes as he has for months criticized President Biden for not doing more to help New York accommodate the tens of thousands of mostly Latin American migrants who have arrived in the city since last year. According to the latest data from Adams’ office, more than 65,000 migrants remain housed in the city’s shelter systems, putting immense strain on the local social safety net and costing the city millions of dollars every week.

The mayor’s rebukes of Biden has resulted in their professional relationship fraying.

Adams, who at one point called himself the “Biden of Brooklyn,” has not met with the president since this past January. The mayor was also earlier this year removed from a team of high-profile surrogates expected to help prop up the president’s 2024 reelection campaign.

____