Tipsheet

Eric Adams Goes on Latin American Tour to Deliver a Message No Migrant Will Believe

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has personally embarked on a mission to dissuade migrants from illegally crossing into the U.S. to seek asylum and then traveling to the Big Apple as their final destination. 

The city, which is now receiving some 600 illegal border crossers a day, is “at capacity,” Adams said. 

To get that message across, he traveled to three countries in Central and South America this week to make the case.

“We want to give people a true picture of what is here,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday. 

During the tour, Adams plans to fight what he called misinformation that is coming from migrant smugglers and being popularized on social media platforms, where asylum-seekers are misled into thinking New York City will greet them with luxury and work opportunities.

The mayor said he will be appearing on radio stations, television channels and newspaper pages to deter potential migrants from coming to New York, which is part of a broader campaign of trying to discourage asylum-seekers that has also included fliers handed out at the border and trying to limit stays at shelters. […]

The visit includes stops in Mexico City and Puebla, which is also in Mexico, and Quito, Ecuador, where the mayor plans to visit asylum-seeker service providers and talk with government officials. He’s also going to the Darién gap, the rough, dense patch of jungle that spans the Colombia-Panama border region. (Politico)

“We need to counteract those forms of communications that are basically saying ‘You come to the City of New York, you’re going to automatically have a job, you’re going to be in a five star hotel,’” Adams said—a message that comes after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration identified 18,000 jobs available in the state to those who’ve obtained proper work authorizations. 

And the city has been forking over big money to house the individuals in more than 100 hotels across the city, such as the Roosevelt and the Row NYC. In total, it’s estimated the illegal immigration crisis will cost the city $12 billion to house and care for them for the next three years.  

Adams said he had to make an effort to stop the influx of illegal immigrants. 

“It would be foolish for me to sit back and not try to stop this on a local, state, national and international level,” he said.

The trip comes as Adams is also asking a state judge to modify or suspend the city’s right-to-shelter mandate due to the crisis.