Mayor Eric Adams ripped into Rockland County Executive Ed Day for blocking asylum seekers from heading to his district as dozens of migrants were bused to an Orange County motel first thing Thursday just hours after New York City said it was temporarily backing off its plans.
“When you look at the County Exec Day, I mean this guy has a record of being anti-Semitic, his racist comments,” Adams said at a press conference on Thursday morning without offering up any evidence.
A “couple of dozen” migrants were sent off to the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh Thursday morning, City Hall spokesman Fabien Levy confirmed. It wasn’t immediate clear how many buses were on the move, or exactly when they set off.
The decision to forge ahead with the migrant buses came hours after the City Hall spokesman told New York City’s major public radio station late Wednesday the plan had been paused — at least temporarily.
Adams’ push to relocate the asylum seekers to Orange and Rockland counties this week has been met with harsh criticism — and legal action — from the top pols up there as they frantically sought to thwart with the Big Apple’s plans.
“His thoughts and how he responded to this really shows a lack of leadership.
“I thought he was the Texas governor the way he acted.”
Day, who issued a state of emergency for his county last weekend, had earlier threatened to grab Adams “by the throat” if he tried to offload the city’s growing migrant problem onto his tight-knight community.
The city was already forced to back down from plans to bus migrants to the Armoni Inn & Suites in Rockland County after a state judge on Tuesday granted local officials’ request for a temporary restraining order that prevents the hotel from operating as a shelter.
Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus issued a similar declaration earlier this week that prohibits hotels, motels and other short-term rentals from accepting any migrants.
Despite the declaration, employees at the Crossroads Hotel were spotted preparing for the migrant influx through Wednesday. Local sheriff’s deputies were also staked outside the hotel for hours in anticipation of their arrival.
Adams on Thursday vowed to fight all legal challenges put in the city’s way — as he insisted the Big Apple is now receiving an average of 500 migrants per day.
“We’re going to challenge all the legal obstacles that are attempting to be placed in our way,” he said. “It will set a bad precedent if someone is saying in the state of New York ‘you are not allowed to come here’.”
Hizzoner added: “You can’t use the courts to deny people to move around the state of New York.”
He insisted that the city had been communication with upstate cities to help share the burden of asylum seeker arrivals — a fact the top pols in Rockland and Orange counties both disputed this week.
“We’re sending a quarter of 1% of what we have,” Adams said of the dozens of migrants the city was busing upstate.
“We’re paying for it, we’re only taking volunteers, we are communicating with the officials up there on what we’re doing,” he continued. “Now some may not like it, they can’t say we’re not communicating.”