Mayor Adams Admits NYC Taxpayers Paying for "Burden" of Migrants Not Yet Working

Photo byKelly SikkemaonUnsplash

On Friday, Mayor Adams downplayed the appallingly slow pace at which the city's migrants are being granted work permits, attributing it to the difficulty of navigating the procedure and requesting greater help from the federal government.

At a NY1 interview, the mayor was asked if he was "surprised" that only 2100 adult migrants in the city's care had applied for work. He responded that he was not surprised, then deftly changed the subject to how difficult the surge of migrants had been on the city as a whole.

In answer to the question as to whether he was surprised, the mayor responded, “No, because of challenge and difficulty of navigating the entire process we build out an infrastructure and we need more help from the federal government. We built out an infrastructure to expedite a very tedious and long process of actually getting people the documents they need to move for asylum as well as working. But let’s be clear: We’re getting now close to 16-17,000 a month. So as fast as we’re moving people out, we’re seeing people come into the system.” Adams added, “We have 1,000 miles to go to get this stuff.”

Over 65,000 of the 130,000 migrants who have entered New York City since the crisis began last year are still being looked after by the city.

At least 15,000 of those migrants are Venezuelans who are qualified to work due to their federally protected status, yet despite this, according to recently made public city data, only 2,144 have sought work permits so far, and not one has been granted permission from the government to earn a paycheck.

Adams has shown exasperation around the lack of progress in the city's migrants obtaining employment. He said, “New York City taxpayers should not be carrying the burden of a national problem. We’re going to do what we have to do. It’s going to be extremely painful, it’s going hurt, and I think it’s just unfair.”