Mayor Eric Adams visits El Paso, Texas after asking for emergency asylum-seeker aid
NEW YORK (WABC) -- NYC Mayor Eric Adams is in El Paso, Texas, getting a firsthand look at the migrant crisis.
Though the southern border is thousands of miles away from NYC, the crisis there has directly impacted the city over the last couple months.
On Saturday, Adams met with El Paso's Mayor and got a look at an area where asylum seekers have been known to cross the border.
Adams is expected to make multiple stops in El Paso on Sunday as he meets with local officials. His trip will end with a tour of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility and a stop at the U.S. border.
The mayor said the city is just at its breaking point.
"Last week, we received 3000. One day, 800. The strain on our infrastructure is just immense," Adams said. That marked the largest single-day arrival since the influx of migrants began.
Adams said that providing services to asylum seekers could cost the city between $1.5 billion to $2 billion.
His latest appeal for help with asylum seekers has been to the state and federal governments for emergency mutual aid.
"Based off our projections, we anticipate being unable to continue sheltering arriving asylum seekers on our own and have submitted an emergency mutual aid request to the State of New York beginning this weekend," Adams said. "This type of request, reserved only for dire emergencies, asks the state for support to shelter arriving asylum seekers as the city faces an immediate need for additional capacity. Our initial request is for shelter to accommodate 500 asylum seekers, but, as New York City continues to see numbers balloon, this estimate will increase as well."
The governor's office also released a statement saying in part, "It will continue to work with the mayor and review his request," but says, "the federal government must do more to help with the crisis."
The mayor says providing services to asylum seekers will cost billions and his budget for the next fiscal year did not include city resources for them, despite housing thousands of asylum seekers last summer.
Jeff Goldfein, an attorney for the Legal Aid Society, said if the asylum seekers were allowed to work, it would change the dynamic.
"The federal government can solve this program overnight by giving people work authorizations," Goldfein said.
That change doesn't seem likely, but the federal government has approved $800 million in grants to cities that are taking in migrants. So far, NYC has only received about $10 million in federal money.
Adams plans to continue the conversation about the crisis and the help he needs when he gets back from Texas on Sunday.
ALSO READ | Workers at migrant hotel in Midtown tell Eyewitness News about safety, health concerns
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