NYC mayor invites bipartisan backlash with anti-migrant flyer

New York City’s Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, is facing a wave of backlash over his administration’s attempts to discourage migrants from settling in the five boroughs. 

On Wednesday, Adams announced a policy requiring migrants staying in shelters at intake centers to leave after 60 days; if they haven’t found new housing by that deadline, they must reapply for residence at the shelter. In a speech, Adams framed the move as a way to prioritize housing for newly arriving migrant families amid the city’s ongoing homelessness crisis.

But critics have said the policy is misguided and likely a violation of New York’s right-to-shelter law, which guarantees housing for people in need. (Adams has tried to weaken the law in recent months.)

Adams garnered widespread criticism Wednesday after his administration revealed a bright yellow flyer discouraging migrants from settling in New York. The flyers are reportedly going to be distributed to people entering along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Please consider another city as you make your decision about where to settle in the U.S.,” the flyer reads. It says the cost of “food, transportation, and other necessities in NYC is the highest in the United States” and claims there is “no guarantee we will be able to provide shelter and services to new arrivals.”  

I don’t imagine this flyer being all that effective in deterring migrants, who’ve likely risked their lives to reach the U.S. border, from trying to get to New York. (“Welp, honey, he did say please. Time to turn around.”) But it’s certainly eye-catching and, in my view, has the feel of anti-immigrant propaganda from the 1930s and 1940s. 

Adams’ liberal critics were vocal in rejecting the flyer and the policy. New York’s branch of the American Civil Liberties Union called it “cruel” and “unlawful.”

But even conservatives — who are known for anti-immigrant bigotry — basked in Adams’ apparent hypocrisy, given that he identifies as a progressive.

The disingenuousness in that tweet is noteworthy. Multiple Republican governors have deliberately added to the city’s housing crisis by taking migrants from the U.S. border and dropping them off in New York as part of anti-immigrant publicity stunts. 

I understand this is not a matter that’s resolved easily if you’re the mayor. But printing and distributing that flyer is a cruel choice to portray New York City as unwelcoming. And, unfortunately, it allows Republicans to say, in essence: “Eric Adams is no better than we are.”

That’s never a good look.