NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams charged Friday that New York City is getting “destroyed” by the federal government’s failure to contain the nation’s migrant crisis — a thinly-veiled broadside against President Joe Biden delivered just hours before Adams was set to meet with White House officials about the matter.
Adams, who claimed earlier this week that Biden has “failed” the city by not providing more migrant-related financial assistance, leveled the latest jab against the president in remarks at the African American Mayors Association’s annual conference in Washington, D.C.
Appearing on a panel with three fellow Democratic mayors from large U.S. cities, Adams argued his administration has since last year done a solid job accommodating more than 52,000 mostly Latin American migrants “without one penny from the federal government.”
“The city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis,” said Adams, who has criticized Biden’s administration over its migrant response in an increasingly aggressive manner in recent weeks.
Referring to other elected officials in New York City, Adams continued: “And none of my folks came to Washington, D.C., to fight for the resources that’s going to undermine every agency in our city.”
Despite that comment, city Public Advocate Jumaane Williams traveled to Washington earlier this week to meet with federal officials about the city’s need for more migrant aid.
The mayor’s fiery Friday remarks came ahead of a string of back-to-back meetings he was expected to hold with senior Biden administration officials while in the nation’s capital.
According to his public schedule, Adams was set to hold separate sit-downs in the afternoon with Drug Enforcement Administration head Anne Milgram, Department of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Deanne Criswell.
Adams’ schedule also includes a meeting with unnamed “White House officials.”
Adams spokesman Fabien Levy declined to name the White House officials, but said the president is not among them.
The focus of the meetings with Biden’s senior aides will be the city’s migrant crisis, according to Levy.
“They’re going to be talking about asylum seekers,” Levy said, adding that among the items on the agenda is the mayor’s push for the feds to expedite work authorization papers for migrants.
The Washington trip comes after Adams on Wednesday charged that Biden has “failed New York City” by not providing more federal assistance for sheltering and providing services for the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who have arrived in the five boroughs since last spring.
“The national government has turned its back on New York City,” the mayor said at City Hall. “This is in the lap of the president of the United States.”
Wednesday’s Biden attack marked the most pointed criticism Adams has lobbed to date against the Democratic president over the migrant matter. It also came just a month after Biden tapped Adams to be among a group of official surrogates for his 2024 reelection campaign.
To date, the feds have only forked over about $8 million in migrant-related aid to New York City — a drop in the bucket as compared to the $1.4 billion that Adams administration projects it will spend on the crisis by July 1.
Adams’ administration submitted an application with FEMA late last month, though, seeking some $650 million in aid. FEMA expects to decide by May 31 how much of that request it will grant.
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