Mayor Adams says he’d be ‘extremely pleased‘ if ‘no one uses‘ Randalls Island migrant tent that cost NYC $650K to build

Mayor Adams acknowledged Friday that his administration has admitted far fewer migrants than expected at its controversial tent camp on Randalls Island — but contended that’s actually a sign of success.

The facility, which cost city taxpayers at least $650,000 just to build, has welcomed less than a dozen migrants since it opened Wednesday. The Daily News only spotted five migrants total going through intake at the tent on Wednesday and Thursday.

In a string of Friday morning radio appearances, Adams claimed the slow pace on Randalls indicates his migrant crisis response is going according to plan.

“If it comes down that no one uses this tent, the HERRC up at Randalls Island, I am extremely pleased because that shows the second phase of our plan has been successful,” he said on 1010WINS, using an acronym for “Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center,” his preferred title for the Randalls site, which has capacity for 1,000 people and is only supposed to house single adult men.

The “second phase” referenced by Adams was his administration’s push for the federal government to enact a “decompression strategy” at the southern border, where tens of thousands of Latin American migrants have crossed since this spring in hopes of seeking asylum in the U.S.

[ As NYC struggles to manage the migrant crisis, some New Yorkers open their own homes ]

Last week, President Biden acted on Adams’ request, implementing a new policy that allows the feds to expel Venezuelan migrants, who account for a large chunk of the new arrivals, to Mexico unless they have a “sponsor” in the U.S. who can financially vouch for them while they go through the asylum process.

After months of upward of 10 busloads of asylum seekers coming into New York every day, only a couple of buses have arrived per day this week in light of the new Biden policy, according to Adams.

Asked in a Friday morning appearance on Fox 5 if it was necessary to erect the costly Randalls Island tent given the migrant wave slowdown, Adams compared the situation to buying insurance.

“It’s like, ‘Why does one have car insurance?’ They don’t hope for an accident, but they better be prepared for one, and I take my hat off to this administration and the team for realizing that we had an unpredictable situation that could’ve brought us 100,000 people,” he said.

If the Randalls tent remains empty, Adams said his administration will “eventually dismantle it.” His spokesman, Fabien Levy, said the city is also looking at reconfiguring the facility to focusing on helping migrants with case work.

Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan, who chairs the Council’s Finance Committee, said the lower-than-anticipated influx at the Randalls facility highlights the need for the federal government to reimburse the city so it’s not needlessly shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“We need better communication from D.C. so we aren’t scrambling without reason, and we need the federal government to step up and provide resources and support,” Brannan said.

More than 16,000 migrants remain in city shelters or other forms of housing operated by Adams’ administration. They’ve been sent by officials in southern border states who say they don’t have resources accommodate them, including Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has refused to coordinate the transports with Adams’ administration.

In another sign that the city’s migrant wave may be dropping off, Adams said on 1010WINS he has been informed by Democratic officials in El Paso that they won’t send any more migrant buses to New York. About half of the migrants who have arrived in New York this year came from El Paso, according to city data.