Democratic mayor becomes unlikely GOP ally in battle over Southern border

NEW YORK — Republicans just gained an unlikely ally in their attacks on the president’s immigration policies: the Democratic mayor of New York, for centuries a beacon to migrants seeking a new home in America.

GOP leaders lit up this month after hearing New York City Mayor Eric Adams say President Joe Biden had “failed” the city on immigration. New York, Adams said, “is being destroyed by the migrant crisis.”

“The dam finally broke last week when Mayor Adams rightly blamed the border and migrant crisis on President Biden,” said Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, the GOP freshman who ousted Democrats’ congressional campaign chief, Sean Patrick Maloney, in last year’s midterms.

“This administration has been asleep at the wheel on border security, and it has had a tremendous, negative impact on New York City,” Lawler said in a statement to POLITICO. “I would be more than happy to work in a bipartisan way with the mayor to force President Biden to secure our borders and reform the immigration system.”

Since spring 2022, more than 57,000 migrants — largely from Latin America — arrived in New York after crossing the southern border. Some were sent from conservative states like Texas, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott chartered as many as eight buses a day to carry migrants to Manhattan. Others arrived on their own.

The influx has strained the resources of one of the biggest cities in the world.

Services tied to housing, feeding, educating and providing health care to the newcomers are projected to cost $2.9 billion next year alone, an amount that exceeds the New York City Fire Department’s entire operating budget. So far, Adams has mostly failed to get the White House to respond to his pleas for additional funds, easing of work requirements and better coordination at the border to resettle asylum seekers around the U.S.

Adams’ new rhetoric, which drew praise from the conservative editorial page of the New York Post and mirrored remarks by Fox News contributor Sean Duffy, was even more eyebrow-raising given the moderate Democrat is a national surrogate for Biden.

The mayor’s comments came just days before the president announced his reelection bid and at a time when Republicans are gearing up to use voter discontent around immigration in their fight for the White House, the Senate and a larger majority in the House.

This is the second time in less than a year that Adams’ message on a highly contentious political issue has overlapped with Republican talking points. In 2022, he joined GOP calls for reforms to New York’s bail laws and only changed his tune as the midterms neared and it became clear his party would take a beating over crime at the ballot box.

Though Adams’ words on immigration could now hurt fellow Democrats running for national office, particularly in New York’s swing congressional districts where Lawler is facing a competitive race, Adams may be thinking more about protecting his own reelection bid in 2025.

One mayoral adviser, granted anonymity to discuss the administration’s internal mood, noted most New Yorkers would rather see investments in schools, libraries and other city services than billions more spent to help the newcomers. Indeed, a February poll by Quinnipiac University found that 63 percent of voters — including 53 percent of Democrats — don’t think New York City can accommodate the sanctuary-seekers.

Spokespeople for Adams strongly rejected criticism that he’s parroting Republican talking points, saying he’s done more to care for tens of thousands of migrants than any other Democrat in the country.

“To personally show his support for asylum seekers, Mayor Adams has organized haircuts for migrants, book donations for kids, and clothing drives, as well as slept besides migrants at a humanitarian relief center while spending hours hearing their personal stories,” mayoral press secretary Fabien Levy said in a statement.

“Anyone falsely accusing Mayor Adams of using Republican rhetoric should stop criticizing the one person doing more than anyone else in this city for migrants and start pushing for more aid from Washington, DC and Albany,” Levy said.

But his language around the issue — saying the migrant crisis has “destroyed” the city, directly blaming Biden for the situation and saying it has prevented New York’s economic comeback — is still jarring to many members of his party.

“It’s extremely disappointing and dangerous to hear anyone feed into anti-immigrant rhetoric, particularly the highest-ranking elected city official of one of the most diverse cities that is fueled by the contributions of the immigrant community,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez, a first-term Democrat from Illinois who says her progressive stance is key to stemming GOP gains in the Latino community.

“At the federal level, we need to utilize executive authority to ensure cities like Chicago and New York have the support they need to continue providing shelter with maximal flexibility,” she said.

Added Florida state Rep. Anna Eskamani, a leading critic of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ immigration policies: “We should tone down the rhetoric and focus on solutions.”

Both Republican and Democratic strategists say Adams’ decision to amplify the right’s messaging around immigration could be a gift to the GOP.

“I think echoing Republican attacks when Biden is going to need every single resource from Democrats to back him up is not what good Democrats do,” said Bill Neidhardt, a progressive political consultant.

Republican strategist Bob Heckman said it’s surprising that other Democratic mayors of places like Chicago, D.C. and Denver, which have also faced an influx of migrants, aren’t speaking out like Adams.

“If you are the mayor of a city who’s receiving the huge influx of migrants that are pouring across the southern border, it’s hard not to talk like that,” Heckman said. “The administration needs to get serious about it. They can’t just ignore it and run on, ‘We can’t let Donald Trump get reelected.’”

A spokesperson for Biden declined to respond directly to Adams’ criticism but pointed to the president’s announcement in January about new border enforcement actions when he said “extreme Republicans” have always tried to use immigration to score political points but don’t help solve the problem.

One of those so-called extreme Republicans, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas who has advocated for conservative immigration measures, wasn’t quite ready to embrace the New York mayor.

“Eric Adams is right to blame the Biden Administration for the border crisis, but this is the same guy who campaigned on his city’s sanctuary status and extended childcare, colleague classes and other taxpayer-funded programs to illegal migrants,” Roy said in a statement.

“Texas has been bearing the brunt of this crisis for over two years — now New York is getting a taste of their own medicine.”