Cracks are showing in the wall – and no, I don’t mean the wall on our southern border. The Democrats are in disarray, with some of them finally realizing that there are issues other than abortion and transgender rights, that some of those other issues may well have cost them many seats, and that they need to re-evaluate some of their positions. One of those Democrats, at least on the issue of illegal immigration, is New York Mayor Eric Adams, who is expressing cautious optimism about President-elect Trump’s intentions on border security and immigration:
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Speaking to reporters at a Tuesday briefing, Adams said he is optimistic about the incoming Trump administration’s pledges to secure the southern border to curb an ongoing influx of asylum seekers who have overwhelmed the Big Apple and other U.S. cities in the past two years.
“I am willing to sit down with this administration like I tried to sit down with the previous administration,” Adams said in remarks. “I’m hoping this administration will hear what I’m saying and listen to some of the ideas that I have been pushing for close to two years now.”
Adams, a Democrat, has been among the most vocal members of his party to criticize the Biden administration’s immigration policy. He said he has been to Washington, D.C., at least 10 times seeking additional funding and federal support but has come back empty-handed.
“We can’t keep kicking the can, not down the road, but to cities,” he said on Tuesday. “Our immigration system is a failure and in fact it’s an embarrassment and we have to do a better job.”
He’s not wrong in any of his statements in that last paragraph. And given the fact that thanks to President-elect Trump’s new border czar, he may be seeing some relief if New York works with the administration, and not against it.
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See Related: Changes Happening Fast: NYC Mayor Adams Makes Big Immigration Move After Phone Call With Trump
New York has indeed suffered over the Harris/Biden administration’s non-existent border controls:
New York City has seen an influx of more than 223,000 asylum seekers over the past two years amid a historic surge of immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border. Many of them have been bused into New York by Texas and other border states as a protest over the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
The city spent $1.45 billion in fiscal year 2023 on migrant costs and expects to spend $10 billion on migrants over the next two fiscal years, according to the Adams administration. Nearly 60,000 migrants are currently under the city’s care, receiving housing, food and other necessities.
That’s a lot of the Big Apple’s taxpayer dollars going to support people who have no business being here. But New York, we hasten to note, is a sanctuary jurisdiction – should they not be welcoming these people? Should they not be happy to feed and house them? Mayor Adams, at least, is getting tired of it.
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Still, there seems to be little enthusiasm for changing that sanctuary city status. Tom Homan, the proposed border czar – who does not require Senate confirmation – has made his stance very clear: Work with me or get out of the way.
“If you’re not going to help us, get the hell out of our way,” Tom Homan urged cities like New York whose leaders have been unwilling to aid in the deportation of migrants — even those who have committed crimes.
“If we can’t get assistance from New York City, we may have to double the number of agents we send,” Homan said on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” Monday morning. “We’re going to do the job with you or without you,” he warned, arguing that current policies negatively impact everyone involved.
It’s going to be interesting, at least for the next couple of years, and here’s the thing that might make this a real humdinger: If the second Trump administration is successful in this, if they can remove even a portion of the illegal aliens that are presenting so many problems to the nation’s major cities, they may well seal a Republican majority for some time to come. Success, as someone once said, is the best revenge, and in this second, non-consecutive go-around, Donald Trump seems determined to get the border closed, to keep it closed, and to get people who shouldn’t be in the country, out of the country.
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Mayor Adams seems capable of reading the writing on the wall. He hasn’t made the whole journey yet, and it’s not as though we can suddenly expect him to start wearing a red MAGA cap around. But his concession to reality on this issue may well result in his re-thinking the value of his hometown being a sanctuary city – and maybe some other big-city mayors and, more importantly, voters, may start thinking along the same lines.
