This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated September 15, 2023
At a town hall on the Upper West Side on Wednesday, September 6, Mayor Adams spoke about the ongoing migrant crisis, saying, “I don’t see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City.” In his stark, fatalistic comments, he added, “The city we knew, we’re about to lose.”
The reality is that this is not going to simply just end any time soon, and it is certainly an extreme challenge that is straining the city’s capacity to provide support, but we are not about to lose the city we have known. New York City is not facing imminent destruction. The mayor’s rhetoric demonizes vulnerable people and oversimplifies a complex issue. They are certainly not the words of a leader who is ready to rise to a challenge.
Adams says that the migrant crisis will cost New York City $12B. That is in current 2023 dollars. Superstorm Sandy, over a decade ago, cost the city about $20B. More than 20 years ago, the 9/11 attacks cost the city nearly $40B. And those tragic events had costs that were far more devastating than financial losses. Nobody said the city was done back then.
The mayor told the Upper West Side residents he was addressing that they are “some of the most educated, some of the most knowledgeable residents” in the city, and asked them, “how many of you organized to stop what they are doing to us? How many of you were part of the movement to say ‘We’re seeing what this mayor is trying to do and they’re destroying New York City’?” He added, “It’s going to come to your neighborhoods.”
While addressing a community that many would say is not made up of strong Adams supporters, his comments to them seemed intended to instill worry and fear that the migrant crisis was coming to their neighborhood soon as it continues to destroy all of New York City. He urged them to organize to stop it and for them to be part of a movement to support him. He was using fear to motivate people to get behind him, all while warning that migrants would be coming to their neighborhood.
We have seen the ugly scenes outside the vacant building in Staten Island, which has been converted to a temporary migrant shelter, where residents have organized to try to stop it. Videos of a migrant woman peeking out through a window at protesters, some of which had brought their young children with them, who then taunt her with profanities and obscene gestures, screaming at her until she closed the blinds.
That is not a community dialog about a challenging situation. It is the opposite of the better angels of our nature. It is the worst of us. It is people choosing to respond to a difficult situation by being bad human beings. It is what happens when people in positions of leadership spread fear and encourage communities to organize to stop the city from being destroyed.
Congresswoman Malliotakis addressed one of these angry crowds outside the Staten Island migrant shelter on August 28. The solution she offered that day was “Let Staten Island secede!” She is advocating that the borough of Staten Island no longer be part of New York City. In the same speech, she said that her mother had left a county because of its leftist policies, but did not reference that her mother came to America for many of the same reasons asylum seekers are coming here today, and that she was afforded the opportunities that Malliotakis now believes asylum seekers should not be granted today.
No doubt, many in that crowd that day are descendants of immigrants to New York City who were told to go back to where they came from. Our city has lived through this before. In 1888, the city council passed a resolution that prohibited parties receiving a contract from the city of New York from employing any Italian labor. We are, unfortunately, again living through some of the same xenophobia right now.
The truth is, this situation is incredibly difficult and it is not going to be resolved quickly. The city needs more assistance from the state and a lot more help from the federal government. Like with other crises we have faced, this one has highlighted problems that existed before the crisis began, like the city’s lack of temporary housing and affordable living units. We need our mayor to offer solutions, not gripes. We need our mayor to work toward addressing the problem, not telling citizens that it is hopeless unless they organize to stop it. We need a vision, not fear.
