Eric Adams on NYC's sanctuary city status: 'Our hearts are endless, but our resources are not'
New York City Mayor Eric Adams sits down with FOX 5 'Good Day New York's' Rosanna Scotto to discuss the consequences of the migrant crisis, explaining that his hands are tied in multiple ways.
Mayor Eric Adams stressed with a sense of urgency that New York City has run 'out of room,' as the escalating migrant crisis engulfs not only the Big Apple, but other major cities across the U.S.
"Our hearts are endless, but our resources are not," the NYC mayor recently told Fox Nation. "It's not like New York is not saying we are not a city of immigrants. We are. We have a rich history of immigrants, but we can't take the global problem and it become our problem. That is unfair to New Yorkers, and is unfair to migrants."
Thanks to New York City's sanctuary city policies, Eric Adams faces a predicament – the city is bursting at the seams and is struggling to find places to house everyone yet - thanks to these policies - he is unable to hand migrants who are repeat offenders over to I.C.E.
Thanks to a "right to shelter" rule enacted in the 1980s, he is also legally required to house everyone.
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Sitting down with FOX 5 New York's Rosanna Scotto for an interview featured on the Fox Nation special, "The Sanctuary Trap," Adams pressed the point that NYC's resources are strained, and that everything has reached capacity.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams holds a press availability at a news conference on Jan. 8, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
"We're not just saying we're out of room as a soundbite. We're out of room, literally. People are going to be eventually sleeping on the streets," he continued.
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"What would it take for you to close the front door?" Scotto, who co-anchors ‘Good Day New York,’ asked.
Adams replied that he doesn't have the authority to tell people they can't come in, adding that, even if a migrant commits crime repeatedly, New York authorities are unable to turn them over to I.C.E.
Migrants are seen sleeping outside the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan on July 31, 2023. Asylum seekers are camping outside the Roosevelt Hotel as the Manhattan relief center is at capacity. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
"The law states that we cannot notify I.C.E. I cannot break the law and enforce the law. I can't deport. I can't stop people from coming in, repeated criminal behavior, I can't report to I.C.E. for deportation. So there's certain things I can't do."
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Adams explained, however, that challenges to the right to shelter rule are in progress in the court system, saying, "We stated that it wasn't meant to be for migrants and asylum seekers."
Meanwhile, news buzzes around the migrant crisis' crippling effects on the New York City area as resources are stretched thin, some migrants engage in violent altercations with NYPD officers and, in one instance, high school students were temporarily forced to shift to remote learning so that migrants could take shelter inside their school.
Scotto, in "The Sanctuary Trap," also takes a trip to the iconic Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan to give viewers a rare look inside the first stop for any migrant claiming asylum in New York City.
The hotel became a relief center for migrants beginning last year, allowing them to get food and vaccinations, as well as meet with caseworkers.
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