New York City Mayor Eric Adams Cancels US-Mexico Border Trip Over 'Safety Concerns'

AP Photo/Brittainy Newman

In a turn of events that would be hilarious if it weren’t so serious, New York City Mayor Eric Adams canceled a scheduled trip to the southern border. He was slated to visit Brownsville and McAllen, Texas, along with an undisclosed city in Mexico.

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The visit was supposedly aimed at addressing the mounting challenges New York City faces due to the ongoing border crisis. But Adams canceled the trip—over "security concerns."

New York Mayor Eric Adams abruptly canceled a trip to the Rio Grande Valley this weekend, citing "safety concerns" about a city he planned to visit on the Mexican side of the border.

Adams, who has been struggling to deal with an influx of migrants traveling to his city from Texas, announced Friday that he would travel to the border Saturday night to meet with faith and humanitarian leaders.

"We were eager to discuss our work in New York City and explore new ways to collaborate with leaders in cities across the country,” Adams' spokeswoman said in a statement. “But due to safety concerns at one of the cities we were going to visit in Mexico flagged by the U.S. Department of State, we have decided to pause this visit at this time.

"We hope to continue our partnership with these nationally recognized Latino leaders and organizations as we look for concrete solutions to resolve the crisis at the border,” the statement said.

It is unclear exactly what Adams hoped to find at the southern border. But his administration has been struggling to deal with the constant influx of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants into the Big Apple. So far, more than 180,000 people have arrived in the city since the spring of 2022.

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Adams’ office indicated that the state has spent over $4 billion to deal with the crisis. In October 2023, he made a four-day tour through Latin America, and has also visited the border crossing at El Paso, Texas.

The mayor has attempted several tactics to alleviate the situation in NYC, including suspending the “right to shelter” policy, which required the city to provide shelter for asylum seekers and illegals with no time limits. Progressives roundly criticized this move.

The collapse of the city’s right to shelter protections currently impacts adult migrants, who are now allotted just 30-days in a shelter before they have to seek a new placement and brave the line of hundreds at the intake center. While Adams has said repeatedly that the goal is never to have families with children sleeping on the streets, new restrictions are coming for thousands of migrant families with children too who account for a vast majority of migrants in shelters.

Thousands of 60-day eviction notices were scheduled to begin expiring in the weeks after Christmas, part of the city’s multipronged efforts to deter more migrants from coming to New York and to encourage those in shelters here to leave.

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The nature of the dangers that prompted the State Department to issue the warning is not known. But the fact that Adams had to shut down his trip could suggest that the situation is getting even worse. Adams and other mayors in blue states have been struggling to handle the ongoing flow of illegals and asylum seekers, but their hands are pretty much tied. Responsibility for immigration falls under the purview of the federal government. With President Joe Biden in office, it is evident that the border crisis is not going away anytime soon.

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