New York Mayor Eric Adams on Monday tried to defend his city’s latest $53 million aid program, which will result in hundreds of illegal immigrant families receiving more money for food than low-income citizens.
Monday’s press conference came after news of the pilot program triggered much criticism for the mayor, with rapper 50 Cent taking to social media to ridicule the plan.
“WTF mayor Adams call my phone, I don’t understand how this works. Somebody explain,” 50 Cent said in an Instagram post.
Mr. Adams responded to him on Monday, saying that he will be happy to answer the musician’s questions.
“I’ve told 50 Cent to hit me up. I would love to explain it to him so that he can go out and do another tweet of saying, ‘You know what? Eric is just a smart manager and now we understand why he was elected by the city of New York to be the mayor,” he said. “He may even write a song about me.
“We need to dispel the rumor that we gave American Express cards to everyone. That is just not true,” Mr. Adams said during the press conference, referring to earlier reports claiming that the new program will offer up to $1,000 worth of prepaid debit cards to help illegal immigrants with food, baby supplies, and other necessities.
According to Camille Joseph Varlack, the mayor’s chief of staff, the amount will be higher than the maximum benefit a low-income citizen could get.
Specifically, Ms. Varlack said the program will hand out prepaid debit cards to 500 migrant families with children, giving each participant $12.52 each day. That translates to roughly $350 a month for an individual to spend on food and baby supplies.
By comparison, the maximum allotment that low-income New Yorkers can receive through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—popularly known as food stamps—is $291 for a month. SNAP beneficiaries are only allowed to use the money to purchase food products, excluding alcohol, cigarettes, foods eaten in stores, hot foods, as well as non-food items like household supplies.
Like SNAP, there are some restrictions on the new cards being distributed to illegal immigrant families.
“Where they can spend that money is restricted to bodegas, grocery stores, and supermarkets; and the cards are supposed to be used for food and baby supplies,” Ms. Varlack told reporters. “That is also putting money back into the hands of New Yorkers and New York businesses, because then they will be use those cards locally.”
Ms. Varlack called the program a “cost saving measure.” The city could “save” $600,000 a month, or $7.2 million a year, she said, by slashing the manpower previously required to deliver food to hotels where migrants are staying.
“What had been happening is that, ever couple of days, we were going to the hotel and delivering food,” she said. “So, what you ended up happening is that you have the cost of the food itself as well as the cost of delivery services.”
Mr. Adams, who has warned that the illegal immigration crisis is pushing his city to a “breaking point,” called the plan “brilliant.”
“We have to recycle this money back into our local economy, because we’re spending this money anyway,” he said at the press conference in defense of the pilot program. “Local businesses are going to benefit.”
The Democrat mayor also argued that the debit card program would save money by reducing food waste, admitting that sometimes illegal immigrants simply “didn’t want” that food delivered to their hotel room.
“Under the first brush you look at it and say, ‘What are you doing? Giving people cards?’” he said, imploring the program’s critics and skeptics to “dig into the numbers” to recognize that this is a “smart policy shift.”
“If it’s successful, we are going to expand it even more,” the mayor told the reporters.
Also among Mr. Adam’s critics is Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who has been sending migrants to Democrat-run cities, including New York City, in protest of the Biden administration’s border policy. He called the food card scheme “insanity” and “offensive” as many border towns in his state are getting overwhelmed by an influx of illegal border crossing.
“It may be the most reprehensible thing that I’ve seen take place over the past 48 hours,” Mr. Abbott told Fox Business. “What’s going on in New York is outrageous, and Americans across the entire country are angry not just about what’s going on in New York, but the underlying cause for it, which is Joe Biden’s open border policies.”
