NYC Mayor Eric Adams Warns Immigrants Will Soon Be Sleeping on Streets

New York Mayor Eric Adams speaks during his weekly press conference at New York City Hall on Nov. 14, 2023. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has warned that illegal immigrants will soon be forced to sleep on streets as the city struggles to find space to house them amid an ongoing surge in new arrivals.

The Democrat issued the warning in an interview with FOX5 New York on Jan. 2.

Mr. Adams said that New York City is “being inundated” with illegal immigrants, with roughly 2,500 arriving every week, although that number can top 4,000 on some weeks, he said.

“We’re not just saying we’re out of room as a sound bite, we’re out of room literally. People are going to be eventually sleeping on the streets,” Mr. Adams said.

He stressed that the so-called “sanctuary city” would soon only be able to provide food, shelter, and clothing to immigrants owing to the continuous pressure it is under.

“This is a national problem. It’s unfair for local municipalities and cities to handle this problem,” he said.

Mr. Adams also said that he believes too many immigrants are entering the United States through “various pathways and cavities in our border,” but did not elaborate further.

“We have to be extremely careful because not everyone that’s coming is pursuing the American Dream,” he said.

NYC at ‘Breaking Point’

Elsewhere during the interview, commissioner of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, Manuel Castro, echoed his previous remarks that the current surge of immigrant arrivals in New York City is unsustainable.

“We had to do this because it’s an emergency and a lot of people are coming in that have no idea what’s going on,” he said of the city welcoming thousands of immigrants, including those bused from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott. “They were just given a bus ticket to come here or a plane ticket to come here and then they don’t know where else to go.”

Their comments come after Mr. Adams in October proposed setting up tent cities in public parks to house the surge of immigrants, which has squeezed homeless shelters beyond full capacity.

In that same month, the mayor announced immigrant families with children currently residing in the city’s shelters would only be allowed to stay for 60 days as NYC reached “breaking point.”

He also urged government agencies to submit plans to cut budgets by 5 percent and potentially up to 15 percent to offset the financial impact brought by the illegal immigration crisis.

Illegal immigrants board a bus en route to a shelter at Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City on May 18, 2023. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Clampdown on Immigrant Buses

Last month, Mr. Adams issued an executive order to clamp down on charter bus companies transporting illegal immigrants from Texas, stating that such firms must notify the city’s Emergency Management Office at least 32 hours before arriving in the city.

According to the executive order, charter bus companies may only drop off immigrants between 8:30 a.m. and 12 p.m. every day, while the sole designated location for drop-offs is on West 41st Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Manhattan.

Firms who fail to comply with the regulations risk class B misdemeanor charges, fines, lawsuits, and the impounding of buses, according to Mr. Adams.

Chicago earlier this month made a similar move and reportedly began impounding buses sent by Texas to drop off illegal immigrants in the city and began imposing fines on buses that do so without a permit.

Mr. Adams has previously estimated it will cost the city roughly $12 billion over the next three years to handle the ongoing influx of immigrants.

Speaking during his appearance on FOX5 New York on Tuesday, the Democrat said his administration is unable to do anything to change New York City’s “sanctuary” status which protects immigrants from being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

“I don’t have the authorization to tell people they can’t come into New York City,” he said. “It’s against the law. We cannot by law tell someone if they come into the city ‘you can’t come into the city.’ We can’t even turn them over to ICE,” he said.

Caden Pearson contributed to this report.