Today, Congressional Republicans on the House's Homeland Security Committee held a hearing to criticize the "open border." Their star witness? New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
"Democrats today are going to highlight the increased economic activity produced by people who are here in the country, and that somehow a new restaurant started by an illegal migrant is financially a net positive for the country," said Tennessee Republican and Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark E. Green. "If that were the case, Mayor Adams in New York City, a Democrat, would not be screaming at the top of his lungs how this mass weight is destroying his city."
"Let me start with a blunt quote: 'The migrant crisis will destroy New York City.' Those aren't my words, they aren't the words of extreme MAGA members or right-wing hyperbole, those are the words spoken by Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams at a town hall in Manhattan two weeks ago," said Staten Island City Councilmember Joe Borelli, who was called in by Republicans to testify.
Mississippi Congressmember Richard Guest began his remarks by playing a clip of Eric Adams at that town hall. New York Representative Anthony D'Esposito said that "It's very rare that Mayor Adams and I agree, but I do agree that this issue is going to destroy New York City."
Clearly, Adams has given Republicans plenty of fuel as they gear up for the 2024 general election, and his comments will almost certainly end up on mailers and in commercials pushing Republican candidates in New York's new swing districts. Because of Adams and his local media bully pulpit in the country's media capital, Republicans are now using his words to target New York districts that should be safely Democratic.
"Like New Yorkers, we won't let today's sideshow distract from Washington's inaction," a mayoral spokesperson told Hell Gate, brushing off Republicans embracing Adams's words. The spokesperson listed expedited work permits and comprehensive immigration reform as something that Republicans could do to help New York, instead of focusing on the mayor's rhetoric.
Despite the prospect of a massive electoral blowback, and being left out of a meeting today with the president and the governor about the migrant situation, Adams refuses to back off his rhetoric. "I don't search through a thesaurus to find a politically correct way of saying you are hurting me," Adams told PIX11 on Wednesday. "You're hurting my city if that's what someone is doing."
As any New Yorker can see, New York City is not destroyed, is not being destroyed, and in general has handled the recent influx of migrants much as it has done for the past two centuries, by continuing about its business.
The one dead set on "destroying" New York City? It might be the guy threatening to decimate the City's social services while seeing most major metrics for municipal success trending downward, all while at the same time finding resonance with the most xenophobic elements in America. It could be that guy, who's not equivocating when he says what he says about migrants.
While Republicans go on racist tirades to cynically win votes, that's not what Adams is doing here, though his ultimate goal is one that Republicans share: austerity, a policy of his that pre-dates the arrival of migrants to the city, and one that he committed himself to on day one in office.
