New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday will begin a four-day trip to Latin America where he is expected to personally try to dissuade migrants from making the journey to the Big Apple.
At a press conference Tuesday, Adams said he would travel to Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador, as well as the Darién Gap – a treacherous terrain of jungle between Panama and Columbia where leaders who visited during the United Nations General Assembly last month told the New York City mayor that a “heavy flow” of migrants were pouring through to head north to the U.S.-Mexico border. Yet, Adams maintained the position that the border “should remain open.”
“We believe the borders should remain open,” Adams told reporters Tuesday. “That’s the official position of this city. But we have made it clear there should be a decompression strategy that we could properly deal with the volumes that’s coming into our city, and no cities should have to carry the burden of a nation … of the national government.”
Adams intentionally contradicted his chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin, who recently drew criticism from city council members for insisting the U.S. close the southern border.
The mayor said he would be appearing on local TV and radio stations and speaking with newspapers in Latin America during his “public relations campaign” meant to counter messaging flooding social media telling migrants in Central and South America that if they make it to New York City they’ll be on easy street.
“We want to give people a true picture of what is here,” Adams told reporters.
“We’re going to tell them that coming to New York doesn’t mean you’re going to stay in a 5-star hotel,” he continued. “It doesn’t mean that that mere fact you come here you automatically are going to be allowed to work, which as you understand, TPS was only given to those Venezuelans.”
“We’re going to tell them what the real conditions are, the large number of thousands of people are living in congregate settings,” Adams said. “We know that there’s a propaganda machine that basically – it has given the false promise of what life is like of being a migrant and asylum seeker, and we want to be honest with those who live in these regions.”
Adams said Tuesday that more than 117,000 migrants have arrived in New York City, but New York Gov. Kathy Hochul recently estimated the count to have surpassed 125,000 people.
NEW YORK GOV HOCHUL WANTS TO ‘LIMIT’ WHO CROSSES BORDER, SAYS IT’S ‘TOO OPEN RIGHT NOW’
Reiterating the city is “at capacity,” Adams said at one point about 10,000 migrants were arriving per month, and more recently, the city has recorded an influx of about 600 new migrants a day or about 4,200 new migrants a week. Adams also blamed Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, whose administration says it bussed only 16,400 migrants to New York City since August 2022 to alleviate the burden on border communities. The mayor claimed Abbott had “primed the pump” of the flow of migrants to New York.
Adams’ travel to Mexico will be covered by the U.S.-Mexico Foundation, while the mayor insisted Tuesday he was personally footing the bill for the other legs of the trip. His security detail will be paid for by the city and handled through the NYPD Intelligence Bureau. Also joining the trip are city commissioners Edward Mermelstein of the Office of International Affairs, and Manuel Castro from the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, who both will be funding their own travel expenses.
Separate from Adams’ trip, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also traveling to Mexico this week, where he will co-chair the 2023 U.S.-Mexico High-Level Security Dialogue in Mexico City and meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Also Tuesday, Adams and fellow Democrat Hochul announced more than $38 million in new state funding to bolster the city’s efforts to provide legal services for asylum seekers.
The announcement came on the first day that the federal rule extending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Venezuelans who entered the country before July 31, 2023, took effect.
New York City will begin assisting eligible Venezuelans to submit their paper applications for TPS, as well as work authorization and fee waiver forms at the city’s Asylum Application Help Center – which is also partially funded by state resources. Since the migrant crisis began, New York City has opened 210 emergency sites, including 17 other large-scale humanitarian relief centers. The city has also established navigation centers to connect asylum seekers with resources and enrolled thousands of migrant children in public schools.