(NewsNation) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams is calling for other cities to step up and share the responsibility of caring for migrants as buses full of migrants pull up to the Big Apple every day.
“We have 108,000 cities, villages, towns. If everyone takes a small portion of that, and if it’s coordinated at the border, to ensure that those who are coming here to this country in a lawful manner are actually moved throughout the entire country, it is not a burden on one city,” Adams said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Adams said New York City has seen around 70,000 asylum seekers arrive since August of last year. More than 40,000 remain in the city and to deal with the surge, New York City has turned to opening school gyms and closed hotels to house migrants and even bused some of them further north in the state.
In Washington, D.C., thousands of migrants have been sent up with Texas, with some even being bused to arrive outside Vice President Kamala Harris’s house.
In Chicago, the number of immigrants arriving has led to using a college as a housing resource.
Adams has said there is still a need for more assistance as cities try to find shelter for asylum seekers.
Since the expiration of Title 42, the number of apprehensions at the southwest border has declined. According to data from Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations, the days leading up to the end of Title 42 brought more than 10,000 apprehensions.
In April, Adams also called out President Joe Biden for failing New York City, causing a rift with the president’s team and fellow Democrats.
But Adams said he mainly blames Republicans for failing to deal with immigration in Congress.
Adams estimates the city ahs spent several billion dollars dealing with migrant arrivals and housing them. In addition to calling on other cities to take in migrants, Adams has also asked for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid to help with the situation.