New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday accused Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a fellow Democrat, of behaving like the Republican governors across the United States who’ve sent thousands of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers to his city since last spring, often without coordination or collaboration.
According to the New York Post, as of Jan. 1, about 35,700 illegal immigrants have “flooded” into New York City since April 2022, when Republican-led states first began transporting their migrants elsewhere, greatly straining the city’s social service infrastructure and negatively impacting New Yorkers’ lives.
“At one time we had to deal with Republican governors sending migrants to New York. Now we’re dealing with Democratic governors sending migrants to New York,” Adams said at a Wednesday news conference, calling the decision “unfair” and “inhumane.”
“For the governor of Colorado to say that I’m going to push the problem to the city … This is just unacceptable,” Adams continued.
Adams was referring to Polis’s plan, announced on Jan. 3, to transport the majority of Colorado’s influx of illegal immigrants “safely to their desired final destination.” Those destinations include New York City and Chicago, Adams told the “Sid & Friends in the Morning” radio program, also on Jan. 3.
Since November, Adams has appealed to the Biden administration for additional monetary support to help deal with the stream of migrants into New York City, formally applying to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for $1 billion, but hasn’t yet been awarded any relief, the Post reported.
To solve the crisis that has been “dropped on us,” Adams said at Wednesday’s news conference, the city has opened 63 “emergency hotels.”
“There are real dollar amounts that are attached to this,” he said. “This is an expensive endeavor that we are in. And we have to find ways of carrying out this task without bankrupting this city.”
He went on to say that just because the city appears to be handling the situation well—migrants aren’t “sleeping on the streets” like “what’s happening in El Paso” and other cities across the country—people are often left with the impression that there’s no crisis in New York City.
“No, there is a crisis,” he said. “We’re almost a victim of our success of doing the job.”
Colorado’s Illegal Immigrant Crisis
Over the past month, more than 3,500 illegal immigrants have arrived in Denver, Colorado, Politico reported, and each night over 1,800 have required shelter in the city.
This inspired Democrat Denver Mayor Michael Hancock to declare a state of emergency on Dec. 15 in order “to help coordinate sheltering operations, reunification efforts, and other means to support these individuals and families while they are in our community,” Hancock said during the news conference, also on Dec. 15, where he made the announcement.
Hancock said that his city has been welcoming groups of migrants over the past several months, “which we’ve been prepared for and expecting.” But this latest influx came at an increased volume and “without any type of advanced notice,” a sharp contrast to what Denver had experienced previously.
The migrants and asylum seekers arriving in Denver last month were “mostly coming from El Paso,” he said. And the country from which most originated is Venezuela, where asylum seekers are fleeing a devastating political and humanitarian crisis.
Hancock said that he has had to resort to existing homeless shelters to house the migrants, but the effort has “put a burden on that system” and Denver Recreation Centers throughout the city, something that they weren’t designed to do long term.
According to the Colorado Sun, the centers’ gyms became so overcrowded that the cots provided could no longer fit, so the city put mats on the floor, creating an environment inhospitable for children. Families traveling together were then put up in motels, which is an expensive solution to housing.
The city has spent $1.44 million so far, the Colorado Sun reported, covering costs for hotel rooms, the hiring of over 100 workers to staff the emergency shelters, cots, blankets, food, and cleaning supplies.
Denver is not intended to be a permanent location for the majority of these migrants. According to the statement Colorado Gov. Polis made on Jan. 3, for about 70 percent of the migrants arriving in Denver, Colorado is not their final destination.
Hancock explained that part of the process of meeting the needs of Denver’s illegal immigrant population is to reunify them with the family and friends that they have in the United States.
“I can tell you firsthand that we’ve sent some of the migrants and asylum seekers to other cities because we have verified they have family there looking for them,” he said. “So, we’ve helped them to get to where they’ve … desired to go.”
Colorado Gov. Polis Reacts to Fellow Democrat Criticism
Polis defended Colorado’s migrant movement policy to the Colorado Sun and pushed back on fellow Democrat criticism, saying that his decision isn’t anything like that of his Republican counterparts.
“It’s really night and day,” he said, calling it frustrating to get caught up in a “national sensational narrative.”
“I think what we very thoughtfully asked ourselves in Colorado is how can we help folks who have been through a long journey,” he said.
Polis went on to explain that most of the migrants he met while visiting them on Christmas Day were from Venezuela, an “oppressive, socialist regime” and that they have been traveling for many months already, “trying to get to friends or relatives in specific cities.”
Polis also reiterated that Colorado isn’t forcing people to leave his state and has even extended invitations for them to stay.
“It’s obviously entirely different than any governor that is sending people to places they don’t want to go to get them out of their area,” he said. “We are respecting … the desires of migrants who are passing through Colorado. We want to help them reach their final destination.”
“We don’t want to trap them or imprison them in our state,” he said.
According to the Colorado Sun, Polis has pledged $5 million to assist in the migrant situation, paying for and arranging travel by charter bus to various cities across the country, all of it state-funded.
Democrat Criticism Launched at Biden Administration, Federal Government
Democrats Adams, Polis, and Hancock all referred to the crisis at the border as a failure of the Democrat-controlled federal government and something it must prioritize to solve.
“States and cities cannot continue to bear this burden alone and Congress needs to finally step up,” Polis said in his Jan. 3 statement. “We need … to finally enact better border security and immigration reform.”
“We have finite resources,” Hancock said at his Dec. 15 news conference, speaking of Denver and other cities around the country that have had to deal with migrant populations. “We cannot and will not put our cities in a financial mode of crisis to address this.”
“This is a clarion call to our elected officials at the federal level to put aside politics and recognize the humanitarian crisis that has come to our borders,” he said. “All around this country cities are being faced to deal with something we’re not equipped to deal with.”
“We have to solve the migrant immigrant issue,” Adams said at his Jan. 3 news conference. “We have a problem at our borders. El Paso shouldn’t be going through this, and no other city should be going through this.”
“So, when I say the federal government, I’m talking about Congress and the executive branch resolving this issue … we have an immigrant crisis that we can’t continue to ignore.”