Mayor Adams played down the abysmal progress of migrants receiving work authorization Friday — blaming the difficulty of navigating the asylum-seeking process and calling on more help from the federal government.
When asked in an early morning interview on NY1 if he was “surprised” that only 2,100 of the roughly 40,000 adult migrants in city care had applied to work, the mayor said he wasn’t, and then pivoted to talking generally about how hard the influx of migrants had been on the city.
“No, because the challenge and difficulty of navigating the entire process we build out an infrastructure and we need more help from the federal government,” he said.
“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.”
Some 130,000 migrants have come into New York City since the start of the crisis last year, with more than 65,000 of them still being cared for by the city.
At least 15,000 of those migrants are Venezuelans who are eligible to work with federally protected status, but despite that, recently released city data shows only 2,144 have so far applied for work permits, with none receiving federal approval to earn a paycheck.
The mayor called the federal government’s decision to allow migrants to apply for work “a step in the right direction” but said it’s “nowhere near the change we need to address this crisis.”
Adams also expressed frustration at the lack of progress at the federal level in moving migrants through the system so they can start to earn a living.
“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.”
During his trip to Latin America earlier this month, which was intended to slow the flow of migrants making their way to the city, Adams delivered a message that “New York is out of room, and the reality is you’re not going to stay at a 5-star hotel and automatically be able to have a job.”
Both Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have argued that working would allow migrants to move more swiftly through New York City’s overwhelmed shelter system.
However, at a city council hearing this week, officials acknowledged they had no solid figure for how many of the more than 40,000 adult asylum seekers it’s currently housing are eligible to work in the U.S.