Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday that he’s baffled he can’t get a meeting with the White House to talk about the Big Apple’s burgeoning migrant crisis — even as thousands of asylum seekers arrive in the city every week.
“The federal government said to New York City: ‘We’re not going to do our job — you do our job. You take care of 4,000 people a week, Eric, you and your team,'” Adams said at a press conference.
“Those who should have been helping us in government — every step of the way, [they] just critiqued us,” he lamented. “I’m not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel from the federal government.”
Hizzoner also said he’d met with President Biden several times about the issue — back in 2021 and 2022.
But he claimed he hasn’t been able to set up meetings since then, even as the number of migrants streaming into New York City has soared.
“It baffles me,” he told reporters. “I have to keep hammering away at this … and I’m really pleased that we’re now getting a chorus of other cities that are joining us.”
“That coalition is going to continue to grow because these cities deserve better,” he continued. “Cities should not be handling national problems.”
The Big Apple has struggled over the last year-and-a-half to deal with mammoth numbers of incoming migrants — a figure that’s now exceeded 161,000, according to city officials on Tuesday.
That includes about 4,000 who arrived just last week — making 16,000 in the last month, Adams said — and more than 68,000 who remain in city care.
The costs associated with providing for that many people have stripped the city’s coffers, and led Adams to chop other crucial parts of the budget, he said.
All the while, Hizzoner has tried to point the finger at the federal government for not doing more to stem the flow of migrants.
Early last month, Adams abandoned a slate of meetings with White House officials after the feds raided the home of Brianna Suggs, his top fundraiser, in connection with a federal probe of his 2021 campaign finances.
The mayor had been set to discuss immigration issues with top Democratic officials before the raid convinced him otherwise, and he swiftly returned to New York.
Adams returned to Washington earlier this month to talk about migration, but the visit didn’t include a sit-down with Biden. Instead, he was invited to a White House holiday party alongside “countless” other local officials.
While there, he had a last-minute meeting with Biden administration officials — but said he “left with the cold reality that help is not on the way in the immediate future.”
Adams first met Biden at the White House to talk about violent crime when he was the Democratic nominee for mayor back in July 2021.
He visited again in December of that year, but left before the president arrived.
Biden also called Adams in January 2022 after a cop was shot, but the mayor’s people said the two haven’t spoken since.
The White House did not comment on Adams’ accusations Tuesday, but pointed The Post to a past statement it sent on the mayor’s meeting with administration official Tom Perez before the White House holiday party Dec. 7.
“As he has done regularly, Senior Advisor Tom Perez met with Mayor Adams to discuss the collaboration of the Biden-Harris Administration with New York City over the recent months. We will continue to support the City and the State in the coming weeks and months as they host recently arrived migrants,” it said.
Hizzoner said his job now is to manage the migrants while showing New Yorkers “how to point that anger in the right direction” — or, toward the federal government.
“I don’t believe any of these cities should be going through this,” he said. “I don’t have the answer … we need to turn towards Washington.”
But then he said it was his responsibility to save the Big Apple from drowning in a barrel of migrant-laden debt.
“I’m responsible for navigating us out of this, I want to be clear on that,” Adams said.
“I do not abdicate my responsibility as the mayor … These are the cards that I’ve been dealt,” he continued. “And I can’t sit back and say, ‘Well, hey, if only I had another card.’ No. These are my cards.”
Additional reporting by Steven Nelson
