Critics of New York City Mayor Eric Adams accused the mayor of using immigrants coming to the city from the United States border with Mexico as "props" to get attention and funding from President Joe Biden's administration.
The critics claimed city officials are using images of a scene outside of the former Roosevelt Hotel, which is now an immigrant shelter and intake center, to pressure Biden and New York state officials to come up with more money to help tackle the city's immigrant crisis. They also accuse the governor of using the scene to discourage more immigrants from coming to the city.
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"Mayor Adams should not be using asylum seekers as props to get the attention of the Biden administration or discourage asylum seekers from coming to New York," Murad Awawdeh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, told the Associated Press on Thursday.
Awawdeh added that city officials should focus on finding beds for the immigrants and keep the asylum-seekers off the street.
Another critic supported Awawdeh's claims that the city can accommodate more immigrants, though he acknowledged it was time for the state and the Biden administration to pitch in as well.
"There’s no question that the city could provide additional spaces for the folks who are on the sidewalk," Joshua Goldfein, an attorney for the Legal Aid Society in New York, said.
New York City officials claimed the city has received nearly 100,000 immigrants since spring 2022, which has caused the city's shelter system to reach a "breaking point." The city's status as a sanctuary city has also made it a target for conservative governors to send immigrants who are entering the country through the southern border.
"I don’t think I or any person in this administration would use people to do any type of a stunt," Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said at a briefing on Thursday.
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Adams also sent people to the border to hand out fliers last month, informing immigrants that shelter space in New York is no longer guaranteed and that housing and food in the city was expensive. However, city officials are reportedly considering building a tent city on a nearby island to help accommodate the influx.
The city is also opening a parking lot of a psychiatric hospital in Queens that will create 1,000 more beds for single immigrant men, who make up the majority of the new immigrant pool.