Mayor Adams praises NYC Congressional leaders for migrant funds, but says more is needed

Mayor Adams thanked the two top Democrats in Congress Thursday — a day after they announced the city would receive $105 million in new federal aid for the city’s migrant crisis — but he said the outlay isn’t nearly enough to address the situation long-term.

“One hundred million is the beginning of the acknowledgment of the problem, but this is a $4.2, $4.3 billion problem,” Adams said. “We are pleased with the acknowledgement that New York should receive the proportionate share of it, but we still have to deal with this long-term issue. This is not sustainable. We’re still getting hundreds of people in that are coming each day.”

The $105 million from the Federal Emergency Management Administration is the largest bundle of cash that agency has allocated to the city to address the migrant crisis so far, bringing the total up to about $143 million. Of the most recent federal dispersement, it is also the largest amount any municipality is getting in this round of funding — a decision Adams praised as appropriate given the outsized burden the city has shouldered since last April.

With about 75,000 migrants coming into the city over the past year — and nearly 45,000 still in the city’s care — Adams has been beating the drum for months for more aid from wherever he can get it.

So far, the state has allocated $1 billion to the city in relief in Gov. Hochul’s most recent budget deal, and then there’s the $143 million in federal money. But city officials projected that the migrant price tag will balloon to more than $4 billion within the next year.

After the last FEMA allocation to the city of about $31 million, Adams groused at the time that more needed to come from the feds, but he’s been consistent in his public praise of Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who have pushed for the city to receive more federal funding.

“I just really want to thank Sen. Schumer and Congressman Jeffries. I spoke with them after the first allocation of dollars and really told them that we have a disproportionate number of asylum seekers, and we need more,” he said. “Sen. Schumer and Congressman Jeffries stated they were going to fight hard for us … We’re hoping that now we continue to move in the direction that New York City receives the resources they deserve.”