Migrants being given ‘false impression’ about what to expect in NYC

EL PASO, TEXAS — New York City Mayor Eric Adams said migrants should be warned there is “no more room” in the Big Apple for them as he called on increased coordination from the federal government to handle this “national emergency.”

Adams was speaking in El Paso after checking out conditions in the Texas border city. The mayor slammed federal leaders for not helping cities across the nation taking in scores of migrants.

He said he learned Sunday that websites are giving asylum seekers the “false impression” about what they can expect in New York, including that they would be living in hotels when actually it will be shelter housing.

“We learned today, which was very informative and that’s why it was important to come here, that there are websites that are advertising that New York City….basically the streets are paved with gold. That there’s automatic employment, that you’re automatically going to be living in a hotel,” Adams said.

“There’s a conversation among those who are asylum seekers and migrants who are given the false impression that if you come to New York City, everything is fine. We have to give people accurate information.

“And that is what some of the centers are doing here. They are truly explaining to people that this is what is happening in New York right now. In New York, you go there, you’re going to be living in congregate settings, that there is no more room in New York. That should be coordinated by our national government.”

Adams, who was flanked by El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, said he’d like to see FEMA appoint a leader who will coordinate the response among cities seeing a large number of migrants arrive at their doorsteps.  

“It is wrong for El Paso to have a response, for New York to have a response, we cannot have these disjointed responses,” Adams said. “We must have a coordinated response and that must be helped by FEMA.”

“This is a national emergency and crisis that must be addressed,” he said while calling on Congress and the president to enact immigration reform.

Adams arrived in El Paso Saturday night and toured different parts of the locality with Leeser and other officials. Some migrants told The Post they wanted Adams to take them back to the Big Apple.

When asked about the timing of his trip, which came several months after Gotham began taking in a huge number of migrants and a week after President Biden visited the border, Adams insisted that members of his team at City Hall were on the ground in El Paso months ago.

Leeser said in September Adams told him the city would welcome migrants sent by the busloads from El Paso to NYC. The Texas Democrat also said at the public meeting he had spoken with Adams about his decision to send a group of senior advisors from NYC to El Paso for a fact-finding mission.  

During the Sunday press conference, Adams said cities taking on many migrants – like in NYC, El Paso, Washington, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles – don’t deserve to shoulder the burden.

“Our cities are being undermined,” Adams said. “And we don’t deserve this. Migrants don’t deserve this and the people who live in the cities don’t deserve this. We expect more from our national leaders to address this issue in a real way.”

New York City has 26,000 migrants in its care and about 3,100 migrants arrived in the last week-and-a-half, Adams said. The services that are provided are wide-ranging, he noted.

He said he plans to address this issue among cities at the US Conference of Mayors in Washington this week, including those cities already taking in migrants, and those that are not.

“Because today it’s El Paso” Adams said. “Tomorrow it could be their cities.”