New York Mayor Eric Adams sent a blunt message to migrants and potential migrants during a visit to Puebla, Mexico on Thursday: The Big Apple is full.
Adams, a former police officer who assumed office in January 2022, traveled to Mexico this week to start a four-day trip through Latin America. The trip is primarily aimed at dissuading people already heading to the United States, as well as those who might be thinking about doing so, from trying their luck in New York City.
The city is already overwhelmed by arriving migrants, who are placing immense pressure on shelters, hospitals and other services. Over 122,000 asylum seekers have passed through New York’s “intake system” since the spring of 2022, Adams said in a statement this week. Around 60,000 are currently in the city’s care, The New York Times reported.
“There is no more room in New York,” the mayor told reporters after addressing the Puebla state Congress on Thursday.
“Our hearts are endless, but our resources are not. We don’t want to put people in congregate shelters. We don’t want people to think they will be employed,” Adams said.
He also said that New York has “reached capacity” and authorities “don’t want to turn … [migrants’] aspiration for dreams into a nightmare.”
“… [Migrants] deserve a more dignified environment than what we are able to give because of the magnitude of this problem, and the costs associated with it,” the mayor said.
Just minutes prior, Adams had conveyed a vastly different message while speaking in the ornate Congress building of Puebla city, the capital of a state from which large numbers of people have emigrated to the United States before settling in New York.
“I am here in Mexico to say that we have been long partners. We are neighbors. We are familia. Mi casa es su casa. Your struggles are my struggles,” he said.
Adams, who Puebla Governor Sergio Salomón Cespedes called “the mayor of Puebla York” due to the large numbers – some 800,000 – of “poblanos” who live in the city, said that migrants “are our future and we can’t lose one of them.”
He then praised New York’s migrant community for their work during the pandemic.
“During COVID-19 it was your children that kept our stores open, the first responders, transportation professionals, healthcare professionals. We survived COVID because your children were in our city,” Adams said.
Earlier on Thursday, the Democrat mayor attended a business forum in Mexico City at which he invited tech companies to relocate to New York.
“Any tech companies out here, wherever you are, pack your bags, move to New York City,” Adams said.
He said later in the day that he didn’t believe he was sending “mixed messages” with his remarks.
Adams departed just after midnight for Quito, Ecuador, where he visited a shelter for refugees on Friday morning. Over the weekend, he will visit the Darién Gap, a jungle region between Colombia and Panama that more than 360,000 northbound migrants have crossed just this year, according to the Panamanian government.
With reports from AP and The New York Times
