New York's emergency: getting what they asked for

Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.

John wrote a piece about this yesterday, but I couldn’t resist tossing in my $.02. An opportunity as good as this to throw some snark at a bunch of liberals who sniff at us with their perceived moral superiority is just too good a chance to pass up.

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As you have heard, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has declared a state of emergency in the city due to the influx of illegal immigrants being bused there by border state governors. He is really angry about it, too.

After all, when NYC declared itself a sanctuary city they assumed that virtue signaling would have no cost. Those costs are supposed to be borne by the deplorables who live along the southern border.

Boo hoo.

In case you missed the news:

Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency for New York City on Friday as the city struggles to respond to an influx of tens of thousands of migrants from Latin America.

Mr. Adams said in a speech at City Hall that the city was preparing to spend $1 billion on its response and called for federal and state funding to help pay for housing and services for the busloads of migrants who have strained the city’s homeless shelter system.

“We need help, and we need it now,” Mr. Adams said.

Mr. Adams, a Democrat who took office in January, said the city was moving forward with plans to build a tent intake center on Randalls Island, in the East River just off Manhattan. City officials are also negotiating with cruise ship companies to house migrants on board a ship.

Mr. Adams said that the city has been overwhelmed by the roughly 17,000 migrants who have arrived since April and that he expected as many as 100,000 to arrive eventually. At least nine more buses arrived on Thursday.

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Let’s put that 17,000 migrants in perspective. Since President Biden took office approximately 4.9 million people have crossed our borders illegally. This includes people who have been caught by or turned themselves in to the Border Patrol and those who are estimated to have escaped.

El Paso Texas faces an influx of about 1500 illegal immigrants a day, and nobody in New York City cares a whit about it–except to lecture people who want to enforce immigration laws about how awful they are.

Declaring a state of emergency would allow city officials to move more quickly to provide services, Mr. Adams said. He said the city was also looking for ways to send some migrants to other cities.

“A city recovering from an ongoing global pandemic is being overwhelmed by a humanitarian crisis,” he said, adding that New York was “on the edge of a precipice.”

Mr. Adams has received criticism over his response to the crisis from homeless advocates and City Council members who disagree with efforts to house migrants in tents or on ships. They have called for empty hotels to be used and for shelter residents to be moved into permanent housing as quickly as possible.

City officials are examining housing up to 2,700 migrants on a cruise ship and in discussions with three cruise companies, including Carnival Cruise Line, Frank Carone, the mayor’s chief of staff, said in a brief interview at City Hall. The other two companies are Norwegian Cruise Line and Tallink, which is housing Ukrainian refugees in Estonia.

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For years those of us who are concerned about the unrelenting influx of migrants from around the world illegally entering the US through the porous US border have been derided as immoral and selfish jerks, by people who care little about the real-world consequences of their virtue-signaling.

Yet the moment that they are asked to put up or shut up, they choose a third option: whine loudly and demand money. As you know, liberals are exceptionally good at both of those things.

Mr. Adams has criticized Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas for failing to coordinate migrant arrivals with his administration and called on him on Friday to quit sending buses to New York and to spread the burden to other cities.

“New Yorkers are angry,” Mr. Adams said. “I am angry too. We have not asked for this.”

The mayor’s repeated calls for federal and state assistance are also putting pressure on President Biden and Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, just a month before the November elections.

Asked if he was putting Mr. Biden and Ms. Hochul in a difficult position, Mr. Adams said “No, not at all.”

I would be more sympathetic to Mr. Adams’ calls for cooperation from border governors if he could explain how the illegals streaming across the border might do the same for the small border towns that are getting swamped every day.

Nobody is coordinating with them. In fact, federal officials often dump illegal aliens in cities such as El Paso without warning as their own shelters overflow.

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The problem isn’t really Customs and Border Protection. It is the Leftists in Washington who refuse to do their jobs, and the “We believe” folks who love to lecture others about tolerance and embracing folks until they have to actually get off their duffs and help.

If you voted for Joe Biden, you voted for this. And if you voted for it, you should have to deal with it. If I had my druthers every single illegal alien would be sent to a sanctuary city.

And I live in one. I would love to see how the Minneapolis city government, which can’t manage to police the city as it is, would deal with the crisis. It would almost be worth my own pain and frustration just to see them sweat.

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John Stossel 12:00 AM | May 03, 2024
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