New York’s Migrant Meltdown

Texans won’t have much sympathy, but it’s worth paying attention to New York City’s migrant crisis as a lesson in the consequences in a progressive city of failed progressive policies. Mayor Eric Adams explained it Wednesday night in a rant for the ages.

“I don’t see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City,” the mayor said at a town hall. “We’re getting 10,000 migrants a month.” So far the total is 110,000, contributing to a $12 billion budget hole that will take painful cuts to refill: “The city we knew, we’re about to lose.”

Posturing as a sanctuary city used to be easy for politicians a thousand miles from Mexico, but lately they’re getting a taste of life along the southern border. “We have to feed, clothe, house, educate their children, wash their laundry sheets, give them everything they need, health care,” Mr. Adams raged. “One time, we were just getting Venezuela. Now we’re getting Ecuador. Now we’re getting Russian speaking, coming through Mexico. Now we’re getting western Africa.”

Mr. Adams is piqued that the migrant influx has overshadowed his effort to prevent New York from spiraling into the urban anarchy of San Francisco. Has he told you about the city’s war on rats? He hates rats.

“We’ve turned this city around in 20 months,” the mayor said. “And then what happened? Started with a madman down in Texas, decided he wanted to bus people up to New York City.” He’s referring to Gov. Greg Abbott.

But if the migrant flood is really a “national crisis,” as Mr. Adams insists, why should Texas deal with it alone? For the record, Mr. Abbott said this week that his state had bused over 13,300 migrants to New York City. That means many thousands arrive via other means, including tens of thousands dispatched by Mr. Adams’s Democratic allies in Washington.

Blaming a Republican in Texas is easier for Mr. Adams than taking on fellow Democrats. But controlling the border is President Biden’s duty, and progressives in Congress are a big piece of the legislative logjam, since they oppose any policy to block any asylum seeker from anywhere for any reason. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is hopeless and preoccupied with begging Washington for more money to treat the symptoms while ignoring the illness.

New York City also has a legal “right to shelter.” The Mayor has pushed for more flexibility on that requirement, under a decades-old consent order, and this summer the city drew up a bright yellow flier to start spreadin’ the news. “There is no guarantee we will be able to provide shelter and services to new arrivals,” it says. Mr. Adams has called on Washington to expedite work permits, instead of making migrants wait to apply until five months after they file for asylum. In any case, migrants still need shelter, and they keep coming.

New York’s migrant meltdown is a case study in the collapse of Democratic governance when putative centrists, including Mr. Adams, refuse to confront progressive ideology. Republicans aren’t blameless, and too many look at a 3.8% unemployment rate, with millions of open jobs, and conclude strangely that the U.S. has too many foreign workers.

But the current migrant crisis is on Mr. Biden’s watch. He has abdicated political leadership, and the asylum laws that draw migrants won’t get fixed until Democrats admit they’re broken. That’s the truth, whether or not the Upper West Side wants to hear it, and Mr. Adams is seething because he’s beginning to worry that if nothing changes his legacy could be rats.