Mayor Eric Adams is taking to the streets to demand – yet again – the Biden Administration fast-track work permits for thousands of migrants who have flooded into the Big Apple since last year.
Hizzoner told a crowd of about 200 in Lower Manhattan on Thursday that the feds need to step up, and follows on the heels of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s visit to the White House on Wednesday to plead for help.
“We must expedite work visas,” Adams said at a rally in Foley Square. “It’s just common sense.
“We could continue to build the pipeline,” he said. “That dream of working hard to build a better life for yourself and your family is rooted in a dream we call the American dream, no matter where you come from, no matter how much you have in your pocket when you arrive.
“We’re calling on our national leaders to not do this to New York. New York City deserves better.”
Hochul spent nearly three hours in a closed-door session with Biden Chief of Staff Jeff Zients.
According to a readout released after the meeting, the feds will launch a national campaign in September to instruct migrants who have been cleared to work how to go about landing legal jobs.
“The administration officials and the governor reiterated their commitment to continuing these conversations in the days and weeks ahead, and are calling on Congress to adequately resource programs to support communities receiving migrants and to pass immigration reform,” the document said.
On Thursday, a group of City Council leaders joined the call for federal work permits for the migrants.
“As an increasing number of people seeking asylum in the United States arrive in our city, it is critical that they be permitted to work legally to support themselves, their families and our city,” a statement from more than a half-dozen lawmakers said.
“People seeking asylum can contribute immensely to our economy and it is imperative that we facilitate this outcome,” they said.
As of Sunday, more than 107,000 migrants from the US border have been processed in New York City — including 2,900 last week alone — and nearly 60,000 are currently in city shelters, officials said.
Many of the migrants have turned to WhatsApp and Facebook sites to land jobs off the books while awaiting a decision on asylum in the US, including in housekeeping, construction and food delivery.
City and state officials, who are footing the bill for migrant housing and services, are pushing to get them on the books and self-sufficient, which would give taxpayers a break.
But the city’s handling of the migrant crisis has sparked a backlash, including on Staten Island, where the conversion of the former St. John Avilla Academy Catholic school into a 300-bed emergency shelter has hundreds in the borough renewing calls for a breakaway from the other boroughs.
At Thursday’s Foley Square rally, a protester holding a sign that read, “Close the border,” was hauled away by cops — even as the mayor led a “Let them work” chant.
The protester, former Queens City Council candidate Jonathan Rinaldi, called the mayor, “Biden’s bitch.”
Additional reporting by Nolan Hicks