NEW YORK – First, anger over the South’s Republican governors, Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida, who sent bus convoys full of migrants to New York. Then there are the disagreements with President Biden, his party colleague, who is accused of failing to mobilize federal aid for the immigration emergency in America’s largest city. Finally, there is panic over an influx of asylum seekers – 130,000 arrivals last year – that the large metropolis can no longer accommodate. And now the desperate attempt to convince newcomers to go elsewhere by offering (one-way) plane tickets to any global destination.
When the number of new arrivals suddenly multiplied last winter, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, already struggling to find housing for the city’s homeless, tried to open new city-run shelters and set up large tents on Randall Island and in other parks in urban areas. Even that wasn’t enough, and so Adams launched an increasingly harsh campaign to push immigrants to other shores. Offering a ticket to any destination – even Australia, South Africa or Polynesia, provided those countries accept it – comes after increasingly harsh approaches that have earned the Democratic mayor accusations of moral insensitivity and violating the law from progressives, that dictates this city to provide protection to anyone who needs it.
Adams responded that this rule was unenforceable in the current emergency and asked the New York State Supreme Court to suspend it. He then told the asylum seekers, who are still arriving at 4,000 a week, that there is no more space in New York: the shelter system, which housed around 50,000 homeless people, has been doubled, but that is not enough. There is no more space: the only spaces are created by those who have been given a bed in a shelter having to leave after 30 days.
Adams offers no hope to these desperate people wandering aimlessly from one crowded reception center to the next: Prepare to sleep on the sidewalks as general winter arrives, or leave town.
The new relief center in Manhattan’s East Village where refugees are being directed is actually a travel agency that issues airline tickets. Most people refuse this and prefer to wait in the city for their asylum application to be examined. But there are also those who, frustrated, seek their fortune elsewhere: tickets have been issued for Morocco, Colombia and other states in the Union, such as Michigan. The progressive metropolis is divided: Liberals support the admission and accuse Adams of cynicism, but the number of residents is growing who are demanding to stop a wave of arrivals that the city cannot support.
The African-American mayor, a pragmatic Democrat, responds dryly to progressives: “Today there are two schools of thought in New York.” They claim that anyone is free to travel the world and come to New York. And we are obliged to take care of them for as long as they want: food, shelter, medical care, clothing, laundry, psychological help. All at the expense of our taxpayers. The other school claims this is not sustainable.”
But precisely because he is a pragmatist, Adams is also studying a “Plan B”. When asked if it was true that he was also thinking about creating real tent cities to be distributed in all neighborhoods and installing toilets and showers around the city for those who sleep outdoors, the mayor replied that he doesn’t rule anything out.