Eric Adams says 'the voters communicated loudly and clearly' on immigration, wants the immigration system 'fixed'

New York Mayor Eric Adams took questions from reporters on Tuesday and indicated that he could be on board with the incoming Trump administration's border control and mass deportation plans, even in the sanctuary city of the Big Apple. "The voters communicated loudly and clearly," he said. "We have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed." Adams had previously said that the city would remain a sanctuary city, which would indicate that they would not comply with federal agents in removing illegal immigrants.

"Will you express concern about mass deportations in the city?" He was asked. New York has essentially become a border city as illegal immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers have flooded in under the Biden-Harris administration's open border policies. Some 10,000 people were coming into the city at its peak, and the city was expected to house and feed these people with barely any help from the federal government. Being both a sanctuary city and a city with a right-to-shelter law, their own mandates required it.

"My concern is one concern. We keep tinkering around the edges, we keep having this philosophical conversation about it. The voters communicated loudly and clearly," he said. "We have a broken immigration system. It needs to be fixed. That's the only conversation I want."

Adams has been outspoken against the administration for their border failures and has repeatedly called for more aid to deal with the huge influx. The city conducted a pilot program to give illegal immigrant families staying in city shelters debit cards of up to $350 per week, but once the pilot program ends, it will not be renewed or adopted.

"It's broken and it needs to be fixed," Adams went on. "And New York City was devastated by that broken system. 220,000 migrants and asylum seekers have made their way here, no financial assistance from the administration. I think it was about 200 and something million dollars, with billions of dollars we had to pay for. I don't want to see something like that happen again. 

"I don't want what's taking place in Chicago and Denver, Los Angeles, Houston, I don't want to see it take place again. Let's fix our immigration system. Anything other than that I'm not interested in that conversation. We have a broken immigration system," he said.

Adams brought up his previous rebuke of the Biden-Harris administration for their border failures, saying that he talked about beginning in 2021, 2022 and afterward. He was later part of a group of mayors who sought an audience with President Biden to discuss these huge problems, but on his way to Washington, DC he was forced to turn around after the home of one of his campaign officials was raided by the FBI over allegations of illegal foreign donation. He has since said that this prosecution against him and many officials in his administration is due to his speaking out about border concerns.

As the border problems deepened under Biden, some red state governors, such as Texas' Greg Abbott, began bussing illegal immigrants to New York and other sanctuary cities to move them out of Texas and into locales that had publicly stated that they were open to them. This ended up being a crushing blow to those cities whose budgets and infrastructures buckled under the weight of the unprecedented unemployed population of people who had absolutely nothing with which to sustain themselves.

"Voters made this the top of their list," Adams went on, "the top of their list. When I was talking about it everyone was being dismissive of me, and voters said 'this is a problem.' And if we don't have a conversation about fixing the system, everything else is just being philosophical and theoretical and I'm just not going to engage in that, let's fix the system."

The reporter asked further about his thoughts on how to deal with the reality in the city, not just the federal problem. To that, Adams replied that the "city should not be dealing with a national problem" and indicated that New York needed more money to deal with the existing issues. "There are those here who are repeated offenders," he said, "we need to address that. "You don't come to our city and our country and commit violent acts on innocent people."