Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday addressed New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ response to the migrant crisis while speaking at a town hall with supporters in Brooklyn.
Kennedy's suggestion that most border crossers do not have asylum claims, including some of the 100,000 migrants who have arrived in New York City so far, came the night before Adams hosted another rally Thursday demanding the Biden administration expedite work authorization for migrants.
After fielding a question from a crowd of about 800 attendees in a Brooklyn warehouse, Kennedy was asked about his plan on handling the migrants already in the United States if elected president. Kennedy began by recalling his own trip to the southern border in Arizona earlier this summer.
"This is a huge, heartbreaking humanitarian crisis. And because I watched them come over the border. I watched in a two-hour period, 300 people come over the border," Kennedy said. "Only two of the families I watched that night between two to four in the morning were from Latin America."
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"I talked to every family and none of them -- only two families had asylum claims. The rest of them said, we're here because we want to work," Kennedy said. "They had been stripped of their wealth by the cartels and they have been exploited, extorted. Some of them had been raped. They had been robbed, beaten. A Peruvian family had their entire life savings robbed. The cartels are advertising on TikTok and YouTube all over the world, telling people that they can get them in for $10,000."
As Democratic mayors, including Adams, have ridiculed Republicans Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, transporting migrants from the border to self-declared sanctuary destinations, such as New York City, Kennedy seemed to reference the Biden administration’s own federal efforts to relocate migrants throughout the United States.
"The Border Patrol who are absolutely disheartened and depressed, nine of them have committed suicide over the last year, according to what they told us. Bring them to the airport, put them on an airplane and get them a ticket to any destination in our country," Kennedy said.
Kennedy then turned to addressing the approximately 100,000 migrants who arrived in New York City.
"100,000 have come here to New York City. These are people who have no legal status," Kennedy said. "They are being exploited by unscrupulous employers. They're being paid five or six dollars an hour, which is not enough to live. And they're living on our sidewalks. And as most of you know, Eric Adams, the mayor, out of desperation is putting these now on Randall’s Island."
Adams has received pushback from his own Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul over how he’s handled housing migrants, as protests have sprung up in the outer boroughs liked Staten Island and Queens complaining of tents and other sites erected for so-called asylum seekers.
Several counties have sued over the busing of migrants upstate, and a member of Adams’ own administration petitioned against seizing youth sports fields on Randall’s for one migrant site.
"We have kids in this city who are deprived of their ability to play sports for three years. Some of them would be on sports scholarships. So they had the tremendous advantages taken away from them. And now they can't play on the sporting fields because they're being operated by – occupied by migrants," Kennedy said Wednesday, adding, "We cannot solve that problem until we seal the border because we cannot go back on the American people."
"What we need in this country is a secure border and wide-open gates to allow people to come in legally and have a fast path to citizenship," Kennedy said. "We need their help. We need their contribution to our society, but we can't do that until we assure the American people that the border is secure and that we are controlling it and not the Mexican drug cartel."
Hosting a rally in Foley Square Thursday, Adams said it is "common sense" to expedite migrant work visas.
"We need the national government to stand up," the mayor said. "This is not a New York City issue. This is a national issue. And it must be resolved by the national issue. So don't critique what we've done. Don't tell us how we could have done it better. Don't sit in the bleachers and be a detached spectator on this full contact sport. Call asylum seekers, get on the field and fight this battle with us."
Meanwhile, Hochul met with senior Biden administration officials Wednesday, including White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and said she was assured DHS staffers would surge to Manhattan in the coming weeks to begin processing thousands of people "so they can apply to asylum legally." Hochul said migrants with the U.S. Customs and Border of Protections app will receive notifications about their work status starting Thursday.
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"The Biden-Harris administration and Congress must come up with a real solution," Adams said Thursday. "The United States Department of Homeland Security must be part of the solution. We must ensure our newest Americans can work lawfully and build stable lives."
