Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams is expected to discuss his city's migrant crisis with several Democratic congressional leaders in Washington on Thursday, one month after he suddenly left the capital to deal with an FBI inquiry into his campaign.
Adams is expected to sit down with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Thursday, but no meeting with the White House has been confirmed for this trip. He is also expected to meet with Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Deanne Criswell, according to NBC News.
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Adams said the purpose of the trip is to secure more federal assistance in the city's migrant crisis, including help with the massive costs of housing and caring for the immigrants. Adams has projected the crisis will cost the city $12 billion by 2025 if the flood of immigrants continues. New York City has received more than 125,000 immigrants since the spring of 2022.
"The goal is to constantly go there, be front and center, and raise the concerns of how this is impacting our city. And that's the goal," Adams told reporters on Tuesday.
Thursday's trip marks the 10th time the New Yorker has traveled to Washington to address the crisis, according to the mayor. It comes after he quickly and unexpectedly departed Washington on Nov. 2, before any meetings with the White House or Congress were held, to handle the federal inquiry.
Adams was originally expected to join other mayors to discuss the larger migrant crisis plaguing "sanctuary cities," and the mayors were hoping to secure $5 billion in federal assistance. The White House has only requested $1.4 billion from Congress for the crisis, but a White House spokesperson told the Washington Examiner last month that it was committed to helping sanctuary cities get funding from Congress.
The mayor has also criticized FEMA for its lack of funding in the past. The federal emergency program allocated $30 million to New York City earlier this year to help the city with its immigrants, but Adams claimed the amount was not sufficient given how big the crisis was in New York compared to other cities.
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"FEMA allocated out of the $350 million, only $30 million went to New York City. So we received the large sum of migrants in our city, but we're not getting the funding to match," Adams told MSNBC in May. "The plan on our bordering states is simply to use the money from FEMA to bus migrants to New York City. That is just not a workable solution."
The city has received some funding from the state, but Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has also asked the federal government to provide more assistance.