On Friday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency over the influx of illegal immigrants in the city. This comes in response to Republican governors who have been sending buses and airplanes of illegal immigrants to “sanctuary” towns like New York City, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Martha’s Vineyard.
In remarks on Friday, Adams said that the influx of migrants in the Big Apple has put the city in a “crisis situation” and estimated that it would cost at least $1 billion to provide for them.
“This is a humanitarian crisis that started with violence and instability in South America, and it’s being accelerated by American political dynamics,” he said.
“This crisis is not of our own making,” Adams claimed, adding that “but one that will affect everyone in this city and in the months ahead.”
Last month, The New York Times reported that the city has a “right to shelter” in place from a court order for over 35 years. However, the influx of migrants has Adams and other officials rethinking the policy:
New York is the only place in the country where every person who seeks a bed must be given one. And Mr. Adams, citing a “new and unforeseen reality” that “no city official, advocate or court ever could have contemplated” in which 11,000 migrants have entered the shelter system since May, said that the system was “nearing its breaking point.”
As a result, he said, “the city’s prior practices, which never contemplated the busing of thousands of people into New York City, must be reassessed.” The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has been sending buses of migrants, mostly from South and Central America, up from the border to New York as part of a campaign to push Democrats to tighten immigration.
Pressed on whether Mr. Adams was specifically suggesting an end of the right to shelter, his press secretary, Fabien Levy, at first echoed the mayor, saying: “No city official, advocate, or court ever could have contemplated the unprecedented crisis. We’re saying the whole system needs to be reassessed.”
In Friday’s remarks, Adams said that more than 61,000 people are housed in city shelters, a near-record high, and 100 percent capacity. Reportedly, 17,000 asylum seekers have been sent from the southern border. Officials are renting rooms in more than 40 city hotels to make sure they all have a roof over their heads. And, new families in the city have enrolled more than 5,500 students in the public schools.
“This is unsustainable,” Adams said. “New York City is doing all we can, but we are reaching the outer limit of our ability to help.”
“We need help from the federal government, we need help from the state of New York,” he said.
Townhall covered how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, sent about 50 illegal immigrants via airplane to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, which has styled itself as a “sanctuary city.”
Predictably, the residents of Martha’s Vineyard lost their marbles when the migrants arrived. Less than two days later, the migrants were shipped off to a military base on Cape Cod because residents claimed they couldn’t take care of them. However, Mia noted how the millionaires inhabiting the island had launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money over this “humanitarian crisis.” And some residents began turning on each other in private Facebook groups for not opening up their vacant vacation homes to the migrants.
As the migrants left the island, some of its residents claimed that they had been duped into coming to Martha's Vineyard and were told that jobs and shelter were awaiting them.