After blaming Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for over a year for illegal border crossers inundating New York City, Mayor Eric Adams said on Thursday he now welcomes federal help to remove criminals in the city who are illegally in the country.
After meeting with President-elect Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, Adams held a news conference expressing his support for Homan’s efforts.
When asked if Homan requested help from the city to target the most violent criminals illegally in the country, Adams said his goal “is clearly again with my target area.”
Adams, a Democrat, said his goal aligned with Homan’s to improve public safety and reduce crime. Homan’s focus is on removing the most violent offenders first, The Center Square reported.
Adams also said, “what I’ve learned also from sitting down with him and a representative from the Biden administration that was there in the meeting, is we have 500,000 children who have sponsors in this country that we can’t find. We can’t find them. We don’t know if they’re doing child labor. We don’t know if they’re doing sex crimes. We don’t know if they’re being exploited.”
Adams is referring to “unaccompanied alien children” (UACs), minors who were brought into the country illegally under the guise of coming to reunite with family members. Instead of being sent to live with family members, they were sent to live with sponsors through a program overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Many UACs are now being found in alleged forced labor situations, most recently in an Illinois food packaging facility, The Center Square reported.
In another reversal, Adams also criticized Democrats and the Biden administration, saying, “there’s a level of hypocrisy that everyone that states they want to protect everyone but innocent individuals who are victims of crimes.
“I want to support and protect children and innocent people that are victims of crime. Those who don’t understand that, it’s not up to me to try to convince them. I know what my job is, my goal is. I was clear of that while running and when I became mayor. Safety means everything to me; 500,000 children we don’t know where they are right now.”
Child advocate and founder of Alliance for a Safe Texas, Sheena Rodriguez, has been calling on state and federal lawmakers to implement stronger safety measures for UAC oversight, including creating harsher penalties and enforcing them for exploitation of UACs. Rodriguez and others also argue the UAC ORR program must end after abuse within the program has been reported for more than a decade.
Under the Biden administration, Office of Inspector General investigations repeatedly identified examples of negligence and abuse within ORR. Congressional investigations also uncovered allegations of abuse, as well as ORR initially losing track of more than 100,000 children.
A Florida grand jury found that UACs were sent to poorly or not vetted sponsors, to live with gang members, those with criminal records and to non-residential addresses and were allegedly abused.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, also made criminal referrals after whistleblowers came forward and took other actions to reform UAC oversight. A U.S. House committee recently subpoenaed HHS for UAC information.
U.S. Senate Republicans argue that because the Biden administration incentivized illegal immigration, it “created the largest child trafficking ring in U.S. history.”
Despite this, Congress continued to fund the ORR UAC program.
Rodriguez notes that “after 30 days of being in ORR care, ORR says it’s no longer responsible for hundreds of thousands of children HHS can’t account for. This is one reason why unaccompanied minors continue to be exploited in this country. Congress must end this program to stop ongoing abuse.”
Over the last decade, the majority of UACs arriving at the border have been sent to live in HHS-contracted facilities or with sponsors in Texas, followed by California and Florida, The Center Square has reported.
