CV NEWS FEED // Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who once supported mass immigration, dramatically reversed his position at a Wednesday town hall meeting.
“Let me tell you something, New Yorkers,” said Adams. “Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this.” He was referring to New York City’s skyrocketing illegal immigrant population.
“I don’t see an ending to this,” Adams repeated. “This issue will destroy New York City.”
He proceeded to explain that the thousands of migrants, who, despite coming from many areas of the world, largely came across the United States’ southern border with Mexico.
We’re getting 10,000 migrants a month. One time we were just getting Venezuela. Now we get Ecuador, now we get Russian-speaking coming through Mexico, now we getting Western Africa, now we getting people from all over the globe have made their minds up that they gonna come through the southern part of the border and coming to New York City.
“And everyone is saying it’s New York City’s problem,” he added.
“Every community in this city is going to be impacted,” he said. “We had a $12 billion deficit that we’re going to have to cut. Every service in this city is going to be impacted. All of us.”
“And so I say to you as I turn it over to you,” Adams told the town hall audience, “this is some of the most educated, some of the most knowledgeable, probably more of my commissioners and deputy commissioners and chiefs live in this community.”
“So, as you asked me a question about migrants, tell me what role you played,” he continued. “How many of you organized to stop what they’re doing to us? How many of you were part of the movement to say we’re seeing what this man is trying to do and they’re destroying New York City?”
“It’s going to come to your neighborhoods,” he added:
All of us are going to be impacted by this. I said it last year when we had 15,000. I’m telling you now with 110,000. The city we knew we’re about to lose. And we’re all in this together.
The video of Adams’ anti-immigration remarks has been posted to X (formerly known as Twitter), where it has amassed over four million views and 13,000 “likes” in just 12 hours.
“Yikes,” replied Elon Musk, the billionaire businessman and owner of X.
“Didn’t he advocate for those policies?” asked an X user, referring to Adams’ previous lax stance on immigration.
“Yes he did because [the migrants] were mostly in other states at the time,” answered mixed martial artist Jake Shields.
In an October 2021 tweet sent while he was running for mayor, Adams vowed to “protect our immigrants. Period.”
“Yes, New York City will remain a sanctuary city under an Adams administration,” he added.
Then, a year and a half later, while Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s policy of transporting illegal migrants from his overwhelmed border state to blue “sanctuary” states up north was in full swing, Adams began to reverse course.
“This weekend, we learned that Governor Abbott is once again deciding to play politics with people’s lives by resuming the busing of asylum seekers to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, and Washington, D.C.,” the mayor wrote in May.
In addition to calling the Texas governor morally bankrupt, Adams also accused him of racism. “It is also impossible to ignore the fact that Abbott is now targeting five cities run by Black mayors,” he said. “Put plainly, Abbott is using this crisis to hurt Black-run cities.”
“Despite Abbott’s inhumane actions, New York City will continue to do all it can to handle this influx, but this crisis is more than one city can handle,” Adams said. “With a vacuum of leadership from border states, we need the federal government to step in and provide us with support and to prevent this cruelty from continuing.”
In the past few years, several Catholic bishops have sharply criticized Abbott and other elected Republican leaders for their efforts to curtail mass illegal immigration – denouncing their strong border security policies as inhumane.
In 2020, the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops slammed the governor of the Lone Star State.
The bishops said that the governor’s “misguided” decision “denies people who are fleeing persecution, including religious persecution, from being able to bring their gifts and talents to our state and contribute to the general common good of all Texans.”
They added, “As Catholics, an essential aspect of our faith is to welcome the stranger and care for the alien.”
In 2018, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) notably called President Donald Trump’s hardline stance on illegal immigration “immoral,” even going as far as to compare it to abortion.
The same year, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski blasted the Trump administration’s so-called “family separation policy,” saying of Trump administration border officials: “We have to tell our parishioners to call them out and hold them accountable.”
Wenski continued: “We have to make America great, as our president says, but we’re not going to make America great by making America mean.”
Earlier this year, the Miami Archbishop also slammed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis for supporting a bill to control illegal immigration to the state, accusing him and other Republicans of trying to “criminalize empathy.”
The same Church leaders have so far been silent about Adams’ aggressive anti-immigration rhetoric, observed CatholicVote President Brian Burch.
“Note that the biggest Catholic immigration advocates, including bishops, have not said anything about it,” Burch said.
Read more on CatholicVote’s coverage of Mayor Adams and New York City:
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Blue State Democrats Slam Biden Over Border Crisis
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