As the city braces for a surge in asylum-seekers this spring, Eric Adams announced that he would be making his second public journey to the southern border as mayor of New York City this weekend.
Adams said during a radio interview that he intends to land on Saturday night and meet with national immigration officials, who he claims have commended his administration’s handling of the situation. City Hall did not immediately share specifics of the trip.
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“They want to applaud what we are doing and rally around us and have other municipalities come and see what we are doing,” remarked him on a Reset Talk Show segment.
About 65,000 migrants are still in the care of the city’s social safety net, of about 182,000 who have gone through it.
When Adams last traveled to the border more than a year ago, he met with Democratic El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser and committed to increasing pressure on the federal administration, which includes fellow Democrat Joe Biden.
Adams has become further distant from Biden’s inner circle because of his criticism of the White House, which Republicans have emphasized. The president is facing a challenging reelection campaign in which immigration is expected to be a major issue. Furthermore, the problem has only received a small amount of financing from the federal government.
Who would be traveling with Adams and where he would be going were not immediately apparent. An entourage of immigration and security advisors accompanied him on his most recent trip; one of them had previously postponed the inauguration of a migrant center in Brooklyn while he futilely attempted to divert a security contract to a fundraiser and old Adams buddy.