Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears On ABC’s “GMA3”

January 11, 2024

Eva Pilgrim: Welcome back to GMA3. The migrant crisis at our southern border is having an impact all across our country, from policy debates on Capitol Hill to stretching the resources of a number of cities, one of them right here in New York. Over 168,000 asylum seekers have come through this city's intake system since spring of last year with over 69,000 currently in its care.

DeMarco Morgan: And joining us now is the mayor of the City of New York, Eric Adams. Mayor, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Good to see you both.

Morgan: So, what is your biggest concern right now? And what's the biggest challenge for the city?

Mayor Adams: It's always big issues in a big city like New York. But when you look at the migrant and asylum seeker crisis, as the numbers were mentioned, almost 170,000... Albany, we're 1.5 the size of Albany was dropped in New York City.

Morgan: And I'm sure you've heard by now, you were mentioned in last night's debate on the topic of immigration. Let's take a look at this.

[Video plays.]

Nikki Haley: This is putting harm on our schools, on our hospitals, taxpayers are paying for it. You see these mayors are now upset about it. The only reason Eric Adams is now upset, why? He shouldn't be a sanctuary city then. That's why we have to defund sanctuary cities. Now Governor Abbott finally did to them what's been happening to Texas for so long. We've got to put an end to this.

[Video ends.]

Morgan: All right, mayor. What's your reaction?

Mayor Adams: Well, the national leaders should have national knowledge of policies. This has nothing to do with sanctuary cities. Migrants and asylum seekers are paroled into the country. They're here legally. And so when you have a national leader talking about sanctuary cities is the reason we're having this, it's telling me she's not knowledgeable on the real topic. The problem is when you parole someone into a country, you should have a decompression strategy on a national level to spread it throughout the country and not target just certain cities.

Morgan: So, what's the overall fix, the solution? And can the federal government do more?

Mayor Adams: Oh, yes, they can. The overall fix is cities: El Paso, Brownsville, Chicago, New York. Cities should not be handling a national crisis of this magnitude. We're getting an average, and just think of this number. There are weeks we get 4,000 migrants that come into our city. When you have anywhere from 2,500 to 4,000 coming in a week and you have to find housing, food, shelter, clothing, educating the children, healthcare, that's not sustainable. It's a $12 billion hole in the budget of our economy. It’s going to impact low-income New Yorkers and it's going to impact every service in the city. And I said it last year, we're going to start seeing the visualization of this crisis. We've done a great job, but we can't continue to sustain this.

Morgan: And I do want to ask you, have you spoken directly with the governor of Texas, Governor Abbott?

Mayor Adams: We reached out and tried to coordinate with just the mean-spiritedness of this governor who has, his intentionality of just placing people on buses, compelling them to leave the city. That is why we're taking legal action. When you look at what he's doing, history is going to really reflect how much he has devastated the lives of people. 

Listen, this is a country of immigrants. The difference between what we did with Ukrainian citizens and other immigrants who have made their way here to this great country is we allowed them to work. This is so anti-American, that we're telling thousands of people you must come to a country and you can't provide for your children and families. That is not how we are as a country, and that is what is at the heart of this issue.

We've never been this way as a country, we should not be this way right now for this group of men and women who are here. If we parole them in, then we should give them the opportunity that every other immigrant has had, and that is the right to move into the greatness of this country.

Pilgrim: Mayor Eric Adams, we appreciate you coming in.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Morgan: It's good to see you. Thank you, mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.