Eric Lach discusses why Eric Adams—who once personally welcomed buses of asylum seekers at Port Authority—is now saying that migrants are going to “destroy New York City.”
In the past year, more than a hundred thousand migrants have arrived in New York City. This particular chapter in the city’s immigration history began last August, when Governor Greg Abbott of Texas sent buses of Venezuelan asylum seekers north. The city welcomed these new arrivals, who used social media to encourage more migrants to make New York their destination, even as the city’s shelters—already overburdened by a growing homeless population—were at capacity. Eric Lach has recently published a piece in The New Yorker about the new influx of African migrants, and their difficulties navigating a social-services system that was built for Spanish speakers. He joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the political differences between calling oneself an undocumented immigrant and an asylum seeker, and the demands that Eric Adams is making for federal support.