Mayor Eric Adams will once again travel to the US southern border on Saturday, this time at the invitation of Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande, he announced on Friday.
Hizzoner, in a Friday statement, said he was invited to discuss how his administration has managed the influx of over 184,000 newly arrived migrants over the past two years.
“Finding solutions to national issues requires national collaboration, and I am eager to meet with Sister Norma Pimentel, her team, and other leaders to discuss our work in New York City and explore new ways to collaborate with leaders in cities across the country,” the mayor said. “As Lent draws to a close, I am proud to stand with faith and humanitarian leaders who have dedicated their lives to serving the most needy among us.”
City Hall spokespeople did not provide further details on exactly what the mayor will be doing while he is at the southern border.
The mayor, during an unrelated Friday press conference, said the trip will last just one day.
“You blink an eye you’re not gonna miss me, I’ll be back here,” he said.
This will be Adams’ second time traveling to the southern border in a little over a year, after jetting there in January 2023. It also follows many other trips Adams has taken since the migrant crisis began two years ago, including 10 jaunts to Washington DC to plead for aid from federal officials, and a multi-day excursion to Mexico and South America last fall.
During the press conference Adams said he is “pleased” with the “national leaders” that he says have recognized the city’s efforts to provide for tens of thousands of migrants since 2022. The mayor has repeatedly said his administration’s purported success is evident in the fact that out of the 184,000 new arrivals who have checked into the city’s shelter system, over 120,000 have moved out of its care.
“We should be really pleased as New Yorkers,” Adams said. “I know this is difficult. I know it’s challenging for all of us. But we stepped up and 180,000 people coming into our city, not to support the shooting from the national government, like we deserve. We stepped up.”
But Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition and a sharp critic of the mayor’s migrant policies, alleged the trip is a “PR stunt” intended to distract New Yorkers from the mayor’s myriad legal troubles. Those include a newly detailed sexual assault suit against the mayor and at least two federal investigations targetting his 2021 campaign and one of his top advisers respectively.
“At a moment when Mayor Adams is under increasing scrutiny for his own legal issues, he is once again trying to deflect attention from his problems by scapegoating immigrants,” Awawdeh said, in a statement. “This is just another PR stunt designed to show him as a strongman on immigration, when he has no power over any federal policy or ability to persuade vulnerable people seeking safety to not do so in New York – nor will this effort solve New York’s affordability crisis.”
