Mayor Adams' Statement on President Biden's Announcement to Better Manage Asylum Seekers Coming in From Southern Border

January 5, 2023

NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams today released the following statement after President Joseph Biden announced new measures to better manage the flow of asylum seekers entering the southern border — most coming from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela:

“For months, New Yorkers have seen an influx of asylum seekers from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and every day since, we have far surpassed our moral and legal mandates to serve the more than 36,400 asylum seekers who have arrived here. We have, largely on our own, provided shelter, clothes, food, education, health care, legal support, and a host of other services to asylum seekers — more than any other city in this country. But, as we have said for months, we cannot continue to maintain this flow.

“President Biden’s announcement today to expand the humanitarian program to allow more asylum seekers to travel to the United States safely, legally, and in a more controlled manner, is an important, positive step in ensuring our federal partners can better address this humanitarian crisis. We appreciate this administration’s partnership and response to our request for action, and we are hopeful this policy will help better control the flow of asylum seekers arriving at the southern border. At the same time, we still need a long-term and proactive strategy to manage the crisis we are seeing. This must include legislation that will allow asylum seekers to legally work while waiting on their asylum applications, a true decompression strategy and resettlement program that ensures asylum seekers are being spread out across the nation and not just sent to a handful of cities, and emergency financial relief for our city. Finally, we ultimately need a bipartisan effort to deliver true, long-awaited immigration reform so we can offer people a safe, legal path to the American dream. We know the members of our state’s delegation in Washington, D.C., are willing to lead these efforts and, indeed, many have been immigration reform champions for decades.”

###