Transcript: Mayor Eric Adams Appears on CBS-TV's "The Point With Marcia Kramer"

December 8, 2024

Marcia Kramer: Mayor Adams meets with the new federal border czar this week. What's on his agenda? So, Mr. Mayor, what is on your agenda when you meet with Tom Homan at City Hall?

Mayor Eric Adams: It's all about hearing in a very clear way what's the message and the goal of the border czar, and see how do we collaborate to deal with the securing of our borders and making sure that we can ensure that this city retains and continues to be the safest big city in America.

Kramer: But what level of cooperation are you willing to give him?

Mayor Adams: Well, and that's the most important question. Many people are speculating. In order to answer that question, we need to first find out what the mission is. I know what my mission is.

Kramer: What is your mission?

Mayor Adams: Public safety. That has always been my north star. Prior to the election, even when I communicated to the president and his team, the current president, I stated over and over again we have to deal with the small number of violent offenders who are making their way into our country. In particular, it's a very dangerous Venezuelan gang. It is not the overwhelming number of migrants and asylum seekers. And many of these gang members are preying on migrants and asylum seekers also.

Kramer: So do you want those gang members, if you get them caught up in a crime, once they've been arrested, should they be deported before trial?

Mayor Adams: And I want to hear what the border czar's beliefs around that. My belief has always been, I want you when you're arrested to serve your time because you're not giving justice to the person who was victimized by them because then if they go out, they can come right back into the country. So I want to hear from the border czar and engage in a conversation and tell them some of my ideas.

Kramer: So tell me some of your ideas.

Mayor Adams: Well, number one, we need to secure the border. Let's start with that. We cannot allow people who are criminals to be mixed up into coming into the country. When you look at, is Venezuela empty[ing] their jails and say[ing], we're going to have the worst come to America?

Those who are coming here to pursue the American dream, there should be a pathway to do so. Second, what I've stated over and over again, we're dealing with a population problem in many of our municipalities. Why aren't we telling the individuals we allow to come into the country? You're going to go where we need you. You're going to fill the jobs that we're looking for. You're going to deal with the population issue. So there's a way to turn this crisis into an opportunity.

Kramer: But basically what you want to tell them is we want you to go where we want you to go.

Mayor Adams: The... those who we allow into the country.

Kramer: Yes. Come in any place, they have to go where the jobs are.

Mayor Adams: Exactly. And we need you. I mean, if you want to come into the country, then why don't we have a symbiotic relationship where you're coming in where the country needs you? We need backstretch workers and–

Kramer: We need a residency requirement, like if they need agricultural workers upstate, go upstate.

Mayor Adams: Exactly. And that's what that's what my mayors and others are saying across the country. Eric, we don't mind bringing in migrants and asylum seekers because this country was built on immigrants. We don't mind that. But you can't bring people into a municipality with a six point four billion dollar price tag. Look at what's happening in Chicago. Look what's happening in Los Angeles and other places. We're not controlling the problem. We allow the problem to control us.

Kramer: So if the border czar wanted to establish some detention centers here in New York, would you let him do it?

Mayor Adams: That's– I don't want to go into the area of hypotheticals. I want to sit down with the border czar, be able to walk out and tell the public of New York, here's what this administration is planning on doing, and here's what we're going to do. I think there's some common grounds here from what I'm hearing from the border czar. He's concerned about public safety the way I am. And New York is concerned about public safety.

Kramer: But what's the common ground?

Mayor Adams: Public safety. What is it going to take to assure that we're safe? What is it going to take to continue the rich spirit of the American people allowing immigrants in? What it's going to take to secure our border and what it's going to take to have a real comprehensive immigration reform.

Kramer: So would you allow ICE agents to reopen their offices at Rikers Island that would make it easier for them to deport people who've committed crimes?

Mayor Adams: I heard one councilman state that, you know, indicating litmus tests. I'm not into litmus tests. I'm into solving problems as we are continually doing the city. I don't want to walk into a meeting with the border czar with preconceived notions and lines in the sand. I want to walk in and sit down with him and say, let me hear your vision and let me share what my vision is. We've been doing this for two years now. Twenty, twenty five thousand migrants and asylum seekers. We got something right. Because remember, one hundred and seventy thousand have gone on to the next step of their journey.

Kramer: Should there be more cooperation with ICE agents, though?

Mayor Adams: Yes, I do believe that. I stated this prior to the election. And this is what gets me, Marcia. People are saying, okay, after the president elect is coming in, Eric is now saying different things. No, I was saying this prior to the election. I was saying those who are committing crimes in our city must be addressed. And we should change the current sanctuary city law to address that issue. Bloomberg knew that, Mayor Koch knew that, the previous administration altered that. And I thought it was a big mistake.

Kramer: So do you think you have any chance of re-altering or re-changing it so that there's more cooperation?

Mayor Adams: Well, the City Council made it clear they don't want to change that. They stated they're not willing to change the sanctuary city law. I think they're wrong. I have my teams looking at my power as executive orders.

Kramer: Is it possible you could do an executive order?

Mayor Adams: We're looking at that. The legal team, the corporation counsel that they just approved, they're looking at, the office is looking at. Do I have the power to do so? I have to protect the people of this city. That is my north star. It always has been. And if you are committing crimes on migrants, on immigrants, undocumented, documented, it's all the same to me. And I want to address that.

Kramer: So I want to understand this. You're thinking of an executive order that would allow you to change the sanctuary city laws so there could be more cooperation with the feds.

Mayor Adams: No. I told the corporation counsel, give me what are my options. I want to know what my options are. As I stated almost a year ago, I want to look at those who are committing serious violent felonies in our city. And I want to know what are my powers. Once the City Council made it clear, we're not changing the sanctuary city laws to allow ICE to go after those dangerous offenders. Once they made that clear, I went to plan B and said, what are my options and my powers?

Kramer: And you want to see if you can make that, you can change that.

Mayor Adams: Yes, I want to see. And I want to be able to sit down with the Border czar, and say, here's my concern. And we're looking at ways that I could use my executive power to go after those dangerous, dangerous, violent people. I sent to South America, to Colombia, the intelligence deputy commissioner and my first deputy commissioner. And they did a deep dive into this dangerous game that is making their way up from Venezuela. And these are dangerous people.

Kramer: And you want to keep them out of the city.

Mayor Adams: Yes, I do. And everyday New Yorkers want to do that.

Kramer: So let me ask you this. The president wants to use tariffs in Mexico and in Canada to force them to close their borders or to do more to keep people from coming in. Good idea, bad idea?

Mayor Adams: Oh, far more economic experts than I can answer that. I think whatever methodologies we can do to stabilize these regions. What I learned when I went down to the Darien Gap is that our attitude of not really stabilizing Colombia, stabilizing Ecuador, stabilizing parts of Mexico. This is something we need to look into, because Colombia stated that we're willing to help this problem, but we need assistance.

Because what I learned is that Venezuela helped Colombia when they were going through some serious problems. And President Clinton went down to help Colombia during the drug problem because the drugs are finding their way here. We need to look into how do we stabilize those regions in a system so that we can stop this flow up here.

Kramer: The reason I ask this is because tariffs could raise the prices here in this country. And this is enlightened self-interest for you, because I did some research and it turns out that Mexico, believe it or not, last year, supplied 67 percent of the fruits and vegetables in the United States and 47 percent. So, since you are a vegan, it could mean that you're going to have to pay more to eat.

Mayor Adams: And I'm a plant based eater. You know, a lot of people mix that up sometimes. But I don't want to pay more for nuts and I don't want to pay more for fruits and vegetables. But at the same time, I don't want to deal with some of these horrific incidents. And it's just unfair to those who are coming here to pursue the American dream when you're living a year, two years inside a shelter. That is not why people come to this country. And we should not be paroling people into the country if we're not paroling them into an opportunity such as work and to be able to provide for their family.

And this is just common sense. It's just common sense. And so I'm not going to stay on a talking point because it sounds right. I know what happens when you bring 225,000 people into a city and it doesn't have any opportunities.

Kramer: And you don't want that to happen here.

Mayor Adams: No, no, I do not. And as I laid out last week at the off topics, $6.4 billion should have gone into the issues that we're facing in the cities. These are real issues that we're facing. It's unfair to the migrants and asylum seekers and it's unfair to New Yorkers. And people would demonize me because I'm trying to be honest and I'm not going to try to find the right soundbite when I know what happens when you don't do right for everyday people.

Kramer: And I'm not, no, we're going to have to leave it right there for now. But our conversation continues right after the show on our streaming channel, CBS News New York.