EL PASO, TEXAS — New York City Mayor Eric Adams touched down in Texas to survey the migrant crisis at the border firsthand, witnessing many people sleeping on the street in El Paso and getting a look at an area where asylum seekers are known to cross into the US.
Adams was greeted Saturday night by El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, who took his fellow Democrat on an impromptu visit to parts of the city strained by the recent migrant surge amid the expected expiration of Title 42, according to pictures shared by Adams’ press secretary Fabien Levy.
Hizzoner was photographed inspecting a chain link fence at the US-Mexico border and touring areas of El Paso where migrants have been sleeping on the street as the shelter system for asylum seekers reached capacity. His tour was facilitated by the National Guard, sources told The Post.
The mayor left his hotel at 8 a.m. Sunday with a six-car motorcade and police escort meeting before arriving at El Paso City hall to meet with local officials.
Adams, Leeser and city officials discussed how to “band together to call on the federal government to take the lead on tackling this crisis,” Levy wrote on Twitter.
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The mayor was then set to tour local shelters and immigration processing facilities with US Customs and Border Protection officials before addressing the media Sunday afternoon and then flying back to New York.
Adams’ visit came days after he projected the migrant crisis would cost New York City as much as $2 billion — twice what he had initially estimated.
He ad called on federal and state lawmakers to help foot the bill for efforts to house migrants in his sanctuary city. More than 39,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the Big Apple since the spring.
The mayor said Friday the city’s shelter system was at “its breaking point” and asked Albany to shelter 500 migrants as it planned to appeal to Gov. Kathy Hochul for an “emergency mutual aid request”
Adams had also demanded that the feds offset the cost of the city’s shelter initiative, seeking $1 billion in FEMA reimbursement and as part of a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress last month.
“That money comes from our schools. It comes from our public safety, our hospitals, our infrastructure, our ACS services, those are our tax dollars that it’s coming from and we got to see an impact in every service we have in the city,” Adams said Friday during a Caribbean Power Jam Radio interview.
“And that is just inhumane on the part of the national government. And I really believe it’s irresponsible, that we have not had a real national response to what’s happening at our border,” he added.
New York City was currently housing about 26,700 migrants with an average of 400 new arrivals every day last week, according to recent statements by the mayor and statistics released by City Hall on Wednesday.
