Eric Adams Did Ask for This

October 17, 2022

By Dale Wilcox

Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in the city over the large numbers of illegal aliens being bussed there from the southern border.

“New Yorkers are angry. I’m angry, too. We have not asked for this,” Adams said. “There was never any agreement to take on the job of supporting thousands of asylum seekers.”

Adams’ contention that he and his city didn’t ask for an influx of illegal aliens simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. For months, overrun border states have been bussing migrants to major cities including Washington, D.C., and New York.

They’ve been doing this because they cannot handle the massive influx of illegal aliens that have entered the country as a result of Joe Biden’s border crisis, and because these cities have described themselves as sanctuaries for illegal aliens. No city has claimed to be more welcoming of migrants than New York, which is the nation’s most dangerous sanctuary city, according to an analysis from the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI).

“We should protect our immigrants. Period,” Adams said during his mayoral campaign last year. “Yes, New York City will remain a sanctuary city under an Adams Administration.”

Shortly after taking office at the start of the year, Adams let an ordinance take effect that would allow noncitizens in New York to vote in local elections. Thankfully, that ordinance was halted by a judge, but the message Adams and other far-left politicians sent by letting it go into law is clear. However, Adams is far from the only New York politician who has sought to turn the Empire State into a haven for illegal aliens.

Earlier this year, the New York state Assembly approved $345 million in funding to go to healthcare for illegal aliens. It’s hard to think of a more direct way to invite illegal aliens to your city than to promise them government benefits and access to the ballot box once they arrive.

In 2017, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order banning state agencies and State Police from asking about an individual’s immigration status in criminal cases. In 2019, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio ripped into the Trump Administration over their efforts to remove criminal illegal aliens from the streets of New York, instead suggesting that the administration should have supported amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

“Let’s do comprehensive immigration reform, let’s have a path to citizenship for 11 or 12 million people who have been here,” de Blasio said.

That same year, New York released more than 7,500 criminal illegal aliens into the U.S., including some convicted murderers and sex offenders. Also that same year, the city banned the term “illegal alien,” and threatened violators with $250,000 fines.

For years, opportunistic anti-borders politicians in New York have taken political and rhetorical steps to turn their city into a sanctuary for illegal aliens. That those same politicians now have the gall to complain about aliens being bussed into their city is an insult to us all. Thankfully, Texas and other border states appear to understand that, and aren’t letting up.

“Sanctuary cities like New York City experience a FRACTION of what Texas border communities face every day,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on Twitter. “We’ll continue busing migrants to NYC, DC, & Chicago to relieve our overwhelmed border towns until Biden does his job to secure the border.”

As a rising star in the Democratic Party, Adams could use his influence to get the Biden Administration to secure the border. Instead, he has continued to oppose secure borders, while demanding border states and cities pay the cost of his ideological extremism.

As with the elitist residents of Martha’s Vineyard, Adams has no problem with illegal aliens flooding our country as long as they stay out of sight and out of mind for him. But, if Adams and other New York politicians are going to continue to advocate for anti-border policies, then they should bear the burden for those policies.

Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

Also published at The New American, October 17, 2022.