New York Mayor Eric Adams traveled to Mexico to warn migrants that the city is ‘at capacity’ after 120,000 people arrived in the city in the last year.
‘It’s not sustainable,’ Adams said as he traveled to Mexico City on Wednesday in his latest attempt to stem the flow of asylum seekers and dissuade them from trying to come to the Big Apple.
The city is struggling to handle the massive influx of migrants who have overwhelmed its shelter system and strained financial resources, as hundreds continue to arrive daily in need of housing and employment.
Speaking at the base of a basilica in the city where people often pray before setting out on their journeys, Adams said he hoped to ‘manage expectations’ of migrants setting out on their journeys.
The mayor’s comments on Wednesday night are part of his four-day trip to Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia to speak with leaders and learn more about the journey asylum seekers take to get to the U.S.
The Mayor of New York, Eric Adams, talks to the press in front of the Basilica de Guadalupe after a visit to the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Wednesday
Hundreds of migrants sleep in line early on August 1, for placement at the Roosevelt Hotel intake center in New York
Migrants are streaming into New York City, lining up to enter the Federal Plaza to file with the immigration services, October 2
The mayor also echoed a rising number of voices in calling for a larger global response to the increasing number of migrants to the U.S.
‘The message of this not being sustainable cannot stay within the boundaries of New York City. There is a global migration and it must have an international response.’
In August, the U.S. Border Patrol made 181,509 arrests at the Mexican border, up 37 percent from July but little changed from August 2022 and well below the more than 220,000 in December, according to figures released in September.
Ahead of his trip, Adams said earlier: ‘We want to give an honest assessment of what we are experiencing here in this city. We are at capacity.’
‘We’re going to tell them that coming to New York doesn’t mean you’re going to stay in a five-star hotel. It doesn’t mean that, the mere fact that you come here, you automatically are going to be allowed to work,’ he said.
Adams has made a series of urgent pleas for a shift in federal immigration policy and for funding to help the city manage the arrival of migrants, which he said could cost the city $12 billion as it rents space at hotels, erects new emergency shelters and provides various government services for asylum seekers.
Adams has recently moved to tighten New York shelter rules by limiting adult migrants to just 30 days in city-run facilities amid overcrowding.
The city has also been challenging a decades-old legal agreement that requires it to provide shelter to anyone who requests it. On Tuesday, the city asked a judge to allow the rule to be suspended during a state of emergency where the shelter population increases at a rapid rate.
Migrants arrive in New York City and line up near 60 Centre Street to enter the Federal Plaza to file with the immigration service
Eric Adams, talks to the press in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe where he tried to dissuade migrants from coming to New York City
Asylum seekers line up in front of the historic Roosevelt Hotel, converted into a city-run shelter for newly arrived migrant families in New York City
A view of the historic Roosevelt Hotel, converted into a city-run shelter for newly arrived migrant families in New York City, United States on September 27
Asylum seekers line up in front of the historic Roosevelt Hotel, converted into a city-run shelter for newly arrived migrant families in New York City
A group of migrants wait outside the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, converted into a city-run shelter for newly arrived migrant families
A line of asylum seekers line up outside the Roosevelt Hotel, converted into a city-run shelter for newly arrived migrant families
City and state leaders in New York, Illinois and elsewhere have urged the federal government to make it easier for migrants to get work permits, which would allow them to pay for food and housing.
It comes after hundreds of migrants arrived in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, Texas aboard a freight train on Tuesday night.
They clambered off the train and immediately made their way to the border where they stopped at coils of barbed wire.
Elizabeth Romero, 32, left Venezuela three months earlier with her husband and 6-year-old son. She was three weeks pregnant then and spent her first trimester hiking through the jungle-clad border of Colombia and Panama, and most recently spent three days aboard the freight train that brought her to the U.S.-Mexico border.
She and her son, who celebrated his 6th birthday atop a freight car this week, have suffered bouts of fever. They left Venezuela because they couldn’t make ends meet financially. Her family remains there.
‘We hope that the United States receives us and gives us the support that we need,’ Romero said. They planned to turn themselves into U.S. authorities at the border because they had already waited three months without receiving an appointment to request asylum through CBP One, a mobile app.
The U.S. has tried to get Mexico and countries farther south to do more. In April, the U.S., Panama and Colombia announced a campaign to slow migration through the treacherous Darien Gap dividing Colombia and Panama. But migration through the jungle has only accelerated and is expected to approach some 500,000 people this year.
A family from Venezuela waits to be processed by U.S. agents after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States on September 30
Asylum seekers wait to be processed by U.S. Border Patrol agents after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States
As seen from an aerial view, a U.S. Border Patrol agent supervises as immigrants walk into the United States after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico
Elsewhere, it was announced U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top officials from the Biden administration will visit Mexico on Wednesday to discuss shared security issues, foremost among them trafficking of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, but also arms trafficking and increasing migration.
The latest round of the High-Level Security Dialogue brings together Blinken, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, among others, with their Mexican counterparts for two days of talks.
Heightened migration flows are expected to be discussed as the Biden administration comes under increasing pressure from Republicans and mayors from the president’s own party to do more to slow migrant arrivals.
Blinken was scheduled to discuss migration Wednesday with Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Alicia Bárcena, as well as the foreign ministers of Colombia and Panama.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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