Eric Adams calls on New Yorkers to flood DC over migrant crisis cost: ‘We need to mobilize’
Mayor Eric Adams called on New Yorkers Tuesday to flood the streets of Washington DC to protest the overwhelming cost of the migrant crisis — just like the Million Man March.
“I’m saying to New Yorker is you’re angry, and I’m angry — but the source of our discontent lies in Washington DC,” Hizzoner fumed during his sole weekly off-topic briefing with reporters.
“We need to mobilize and rally a go to DC and say to the national government this is not fair what is happening to New York City.”
The call to action is the latest in the mayor’s ramped-up rhetoric against the Biden administration, which has largely left the Big Apple to fend for itself to care for tens of thousands of migrants.
For his part, Adams has traveled to Washington 10 times to implore the federal government to do more with asylum seekers but conceded after his last trip, they’ve been fruitless.
The mayor, though, is enlisting New Yorkers to help with his cause, though he didn’t give any specifics about exactly how and when to protest.
“The heart and soul of who we are as Americans is to go to our central government and raise our voices when we believe government is not responding accordingly,” Adams said, noting the “numerous” times he’s been to the nation’s capital, including the Million Man March.
Just last month, he also pleaded with NYC’s wealthiest to pitch in as well, by asking them open their wallets to help fill the gaps left by the steep cuts coming to services in New York.
When faced with criticism of his handling of the migrant crisis, Adams has often shot back at other local officials — most notably Comptroller Brad Lander — calling on them to instead lobby federal lawmakers for help.
But at a town hall in Queens Monday night, the retort was aimed at a New Yorker who voiced concern about city services in the wake of cuts to help offset the costs of the more than 150,000 migrants who have come through NYC.
“Have you done any protests in Washington DC about what they are doing to us?” he responded to the resident.
The feds have provided some staffing for asylum seekers’ paperwork and arranged to have a mega tent migrant site at the federally-owned Floyd Bennett Field but have only doled out a mere $145 million to the Big Apple.
City Hall has ordered multiple rounds of 5% cuts to agency budgets by the end of next fiscal year, which froze hiring, reduced trash services and is projected to lead to a record-low of NYPD staffing.
Adams defended his response Tuesday as merely educating New Yorkers on how the asylum seeker problem is a federal issue that has yet to be addressed by those in Washington.
“I’m not pushing this off on New Yorkers,” he said. “This is not our design… I need to connect New Yorkers to the source of the problems.”
