Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday called the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona “cowards” for busing asylum-seeking migrants to Washington, DC — and suggested they lied about not also sending migrants to New York City.
“Our country is home of the free, land of the brave,” Adams said during a City Hall news conference on the topic.
“We do not become cowards and send people away who are looking for help.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey have both publicized their efforts to send migrants to the nation’s capital in response to President Biden’s immigration policies but on Tuesday denied sending any to New York City.
When asked about those assertions, Adams rejected them.
“Now the people who are sending people away, they tell you they did something differently and automatically you believe them? I want you to treat me that way,” the Democratic mayor said with a laugh.
“You believe them? You know, the mere fact that they sent people out of their state — people who are seeking refuge in our country — they sent them away.”
Adams added: “All of us came from somewhere. Even from Texas, they came from somewhere. And so, they should not have sent people away that was seeking refuge.”
“So, they want to justify that in their own little way of saying, ‘We, we sent them to Washington’ so they could do a layover and then come to New York — they can say what they want,” he said.
“They were wrong. They ended up here because they didn’t get the support there.”
A spokesperson for Abbott reiterated Thursday that it’s not Texas that’s sending migrants to the Big Apple, instead suggesting the Biden administration is the culprit.
“Mayor Adams should check with President Biden if his administration is the one dumping migrants in his city, as they’ve been doing to Texas border towns for months,” said Abbott press secretary Renae Eze.
The escalating, cross-country war of words came after Adams first accused the two governors on Tuesday of shipping the migrants to New York City. They accused Biden of making “baseless political accusations” and said he “needs to get his facts straight.”
At the time, Adams also said “it appears that individuals are being sent by the federal government.”
During Thursday’s news conference, Adams said that “our team has been in constant contact with the White House” and again called on Biden to provide the city with money “to deal with this unprecedented surge” of migrants into the city’s overloaded shelter system.
Department of Social Services Commissioner Gary Jenkins said the latest estimate was that more than 3,000 migrants have arrived in the city since May, including “a significant uptick in families with children.”
Adams also acknowledged that the city violated the law when four families spent more than six hours overnight at the Department of Homeless Services’ intake center in The Bronx late Monday and early Tuesday.
And Hizzoner lashed out at the Legal Aid Society for issuing a Wednesday night statement that condemned his administration over the incident and accused him of trying to “cover up for this gross malfeasance” by “blaming asylum seekers for adding to the New York City’s burgeoning shelter census.”
“If those families were sleeping on the floor for days, like we’ve done before, I could understand the Legal Aid’s critique,” he said.
“But to critique an administration that is compassionate to house 3,000 people — four families, that should not have been there. There was no reason for us to cover it up.”
In a statement afterward, the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless said that Adams “isn’t speaking the whole truth.”
“We spoke to eight families with children this morning who slept on the floor last night at the City’s shelter intake center in the Bronx, in addition to the four families the Mayor acknowledged who had slept there Sunday night,” the statement said.
“This humanitarian crisis shows no sign of abating anytime soon regardless of how many press conferences the Mayor holds to conceal the reality.”
Adams’ remarks came hours after an earlier event at the Javits Center during which he, Gov. Kathy Hochul and other Democratic officials announced a proposal to have New York City host the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
On his way out, The Post asked Adams about the homeless migrant crisis, prompting him to claim, “This is the best city for people who are seeking shelter.”
“Nowhere better than New York,” he added out of earshot of his fellow pols.
On Wednesday, The Post exclusively revealed that the Biden administration has sent migrants to New York City despite not having family or other ties here.
One migrant from Venezuela, who spoke to The Post outside a homeless intake center in The Bronx, said immigration officials in San Antonio, Texas, arranged an appointment for her, her husband and their four kids to meet with a lawyer in The Bronx so they could seek asylum, even though they didn’t ask to be sent to New York.
Another migrant cited “adventuring” as the reason why he, his wife and four children took a Greyhound bus to the Big Apple after crossing the US-Mexico border into San Antonio.
On Tuesday, Adams issued a prepared statement in which he said more than 2,800 migrants sought government-funded housing in the city in recent weeks.
Hizzoner also called on Biden to send “additional federal resources immediately.”
“If we do not get these urgently needed resources, we may struggle to provide the proper level of support our clients deserve, while also facing challenges as we serve both a rapidly growing shelter population and new clients who are seeking asylum,” he said at the time.
Mayoral spokesman Fabien Levy said Thursday that he was unaware migrants were being directed to the Big Apple by federal officials but that City Hall has “had multiple positive conversations with the White House.”
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration has “been in touch” with Adams’ office and directed reporters to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which she said was the “lead agency” for the matter.
Last year, FEMA announced $110 million in available funding for “nonprofit, faith-based and governmental entities that have provided, or will provide, humanitarian relief to individuals and families at the southern border with shelter, food and supportive services.”
A FEMA spokesperson said Thursday that the agency was preparing to issue a statement.
Additional reporting by Steven Nelson
