>> tonight over 100,000 migrants have come to New York and more are arriving every day.

With help from Washington and a price tag that could cost taxpayers $12 billion over the next three years city officials are concerned about their ability to house and pay for this influx of people.

We take a look at the crisis that the mayor says will destroy New York City.

>> "MetroFocus" starts now.

>> This is "MetroFocus," with Rafael Pi Roman, Jack Ford, and Jenna Flanagan.

MetroFocus is made possible by The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.

Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Jody and John Arnhold.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation.

The Ambrose Monell Foundation.

Estate of Roland Karlen.

>> good evening and welcome the METRO focus.

In the last year over 100,000 asylum-seekers who have crossed the southern border have arrived in New York, pushing the available shelters and resources to their limits.

New York City has spent over $1 billion dealing with the crisis.

Mayor Eric Adam says the cost could reach $12 billion by 2025.

The mayor has been pleading for officials to provide more assistance but with no immediate help on the horizon the optimism about New York's ability to pay for the situation has declined.

The mayor expressed how serious he believes it has become in a recent town hall meeting where he indicated budget cuts could be on the way >.> "MetroFocus" -->> we turn the city around in 12 months and then what happened?

A madman in Texas decided he wanted to bus people to New York City.

110,000 migrants to feed," a house, educate the children, wash their laundry sheets, give them everything they need.

Health care, and this team, we stated let's do everything possible before we have to push it out into neighborhoods and communities.

Month after month I stood up and said this is going to come to a neighborhood near you.

But we are here, we are here.

We are getting no support on this national crises and we are receiving no support.

Let me tell you something, New Yorkers.

Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an end to.

I do not see an end to this.

I don't see an end to this.

This issue will destroy New York City.

Destroy New York City.

>> joining us now at the latest on the migrant crisis ben Max the host of the max politics, New York Public Advocate and Joe, 2022 Senate Republican candidate for New York.

Welcome, it's always good to have you guys here.

>> good to be here.

Thank you.

>> ben, let me start with you.

Can you give us an overview of the crisis?

What countries are the migrants coming from?

How exactly have they been getting him from the southern border, when did the arrivals begin and how did it get so out of control that the mayor is saying he does not see a way to ask the situation?

>> by the city's estimates, over 100,000 people have arrived over the last 15 months or so.

The vast plurality come from Venezuela, they estimate 40% of new arrivals have come from Venezuela and then other countries include Ecuador, Colombia and the list goes on and on but those are the three biggest countries of origin according to the city's data.

They are coming through a variety of means but largely on circuitous bus routes or direct bus routes.

What has happened is over time the city has spent well over $1 billion according to the data, opened up dozens of shelters including contracting with hotels, but the biggest problem of course is you have a massive influx of people when the shelter system was full of tens of thousands of other homeless individuals and you have people who are not allowed to work.

You have a city with a deep affordable housing crisis.

The challenge has built up more and more and as the mayor says the federal response has been minimal.

The state has provided help in terms of funding of about $1 billion to help the city with those costs but the costs are the shelters.

>> Public Advocate Williams, do you share Mayor Adams despair?

Do you agree with his assertion that if the crisis continues it will destroy the city?

>> here is where I do share, we are in a bad situation and we have to be clear.

What I do know is that the migrants will not destroy New York City.

Our leaders response to this crisis will make things worse and that is a very important distinction because we want to make sure people's anger is directed where it needs to be directed and what happened with several statements that have been made, people can get angry at human beings who are doing what human beings do, trying to get away from some very bad situations and to say that we've not seen a crisis is just nonsensical.

We are coming through a pandemic, we had no idea when that was going to end.

We've come through recessions.

We set a crisis will destroy the city.

Have to cut 15% of the budget because of migrants, that is a bad framing and when we came through this pandemic, we had to do it in a way that did not cause mass hysteria while still being able to say about the situation was.

We have to let people know that New York aims to protect their livelihood while respecting humanity of migrants and that is important.

Joe Biden in the White House has failed us, the governor has begun to wake up and there's things the city could've done better but we cannot handle this crisis on our own.

>> what's your take, Joe?

Do you think the crisis could destroy the city?

You don't see a solution in sight.

>> I share their sentiments in many ways that yes, we can have anger but in the fog and frustration of a crisis not of our own making, people tend to lash out.

We need to be mindful of that reality but we also have to remember how we got here.

The better part of two years, we listens to our leaders at the federal level and local level to tell anyone who mentioned the crisis that it was a figment of our imagination.

I'm the one who mentioned the crisis.

It's not as bad as it seems and what people recognize that if we continue down this path, by reverting all the policies that we do were helping to stem the tide, a day would come where we would turn pretty much every city into a border town and we've seen that here in New York.

So yes, it is frustrating to listen to the mayor talk about trying to cut back on services from policing, trash pickup, quality of life that New Yorkers depend upon.

It is the inevitable outcome, leaders who put their head in the sand and we should compare it to COVID.

COVID did not destroy New York but the response has left a bitter divide in society and a sense of mistrust from the people.

We are re-creating those decisions with the caveat being COVID was a once in a general -- and rose shall pandemic and this is something that we should have seen coming and in fact now we are reaping in many ways the whirlwind.

Where these migrants in a deadly case and also New Yorkers uncertain of what comes next?

>> let me stay with you.

In Williams, that is how the name was pronounced, correct me if I'm wrong, she was Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services.

She said before the crisis right to shelter was like our little secret.

But now if you go to New York City we are going to take care of people and she contends that's a major reason why migrants are choosing to come to New York City.

Do you agree that that is the reason?

>> we have had generations of politicians who made promises they knew they were never going to have to do.

The problem is America is more than words on paper.

It's a promise, a promise that we make to our own citizens and the world.

So when you stand up County legislators from Westchester to places all around and declare that you want to be a sanctuary County and Century City, you had better make sure you have found century homes along the way.

Individuals in those communities who are willing to shoulder the burden and the policies that you want to see come to fruition, we share the same objective to try to help those, make sure that they no longer have to look over their shoulders.

There are 4 million people who have been waiting 5, 10, 15 years and the crisis is unacceptable.

It is failure by design and migrants in the people that call New York home have no choice but to duck and cover and hope that our leaders find the courage.

>> what do you think?

There is no other city like ours which commits the city to providing shelter.

To those who needed essentially.

There are qualifications.

Under this crisis, the mayor has been trying to modify it in the courts.

Under the current crisis we don't need to modify, we need to end it.

What is its role in the crisis?

>> a lot has been said that I've got to unpack, so give me a second.

The genesis of this Republican governor who want to create a bad situation and have done so, those same governors have not wanted to be a part of immigration reform, which would have been the answer.

That started to send people so I wanted to be clear about that.

So they're not making the best decisions now of how to deal with a crisis enforcing New York City to do it on its own and enticing the deputy mayor, I want to be clear that seeking asylum is the legal way to come into this country, so the majority of those folks are doing this a legal way.

None of our policies have been the issue.

I want to be clear, the governor is part of the problem because she is not recognizing shelter as a statewide issue, making it a citywide issue.

We don't have the president helping at the border which we should, we don't have the governor helping with a decompression strategy, excuse me, with the city, which is what we should be doing.

Talking about cuts even before the migrant situation, there have been tens of thousands of long time New Yorkers who have not gotten the housing they needed long before the migrants got here.

That needs to be directed at leaders in government who did not do those things, who did not support us when we said we have to raise revenue because we are going to have to cut for the migrants, to not help the 50,000 people in shelters for years a day before the first migrant bus came.

What we should not do is make a scapegoat of these human beings that directs anger in the wrong places and accept responsibility for a loop we did and did not do to make sure everybody has what they need.

>> if I may, I would say I agree with the public advocate that certainly there is enough to go around.

People on both sides on the entrenched partnership has led to this moment and I would also agree that when they are talking about the shelters that we had in place before the migrants arrived, half a million New Yorkers living in public housing, $40 billion a city is behind in repair.

There has been despair and neglect in New York long the move -- long before the migrants so it's good we focus on those issues.

This notion that we want to play pin the tail on the elephant is a continuation of trying to pass the buck.

It's one thing to say we should put the governor of Texas and Florida on trial for trafficking people to New York on buses, but we have the mayor trying to load people on buses and send them to Chautauqua County.

That having the governors saying she does not want you.

Dealing with shelter as a right across the state, yes, it is one person pointing at Texas, one person pointing at New York, one person pointing at the governor and everyone is to blame so no one is responsible but the people are hurting nonetheless, so yes, were going to have to stop playing politics, deal with it at the federal level, but I would note it is this stagnation of Canada to commit to the country act which allows them to deny access to migrants and send them back to one of the first countries on their way to Canada.

We have people that have come to America, 1, 2, 3, as far as China.

So we need to honor -- >> will get to that.

I want to ask Ben this.

Public advocate Williams, I agree with the mayor that the president has not been doing enough.

Everyone seems to but the mayor seems to blame President Biden for the crisis.

He has not given us enough money.

Is this getting to be harkening back to the famous daily news headline, the city dropped dead?

Is this going to be a headline moment?

>> it could be.

There has been some money allocated a while back that some money made its way to New York less than expected.

Only 150 million dollars or so, a little more expected.

The White House position is that they need Congress to make further allocations and Congress is not willing to do that in the Republican held house.

As Joe was saying, this requires more on the federal level and as the public advocate was saying, solutions and a number of ways that are not happening right now.

There is little hope that they will.

In terms of more help from the president there are real questions about how Mayor Adams is approaching that relationship and when he talks about the Biden White House and the terms that the mayor has talked about, that's not going to show the results that the mayor wants to get from the federal government and their questions about the strategy to get the help he needs even if you can understand that the mayor feels very neglected and on helped by the federal and state level.

>> Public Advocate Williams, one way that the mayor is saying the president could help besides resources is by signing in executive order granting work permits to migrants or some of them.

Do you agree that would be part of the solution and decongestant city because it would relieve some physical response abilities?

>> 100,000%, all requests are not just monetary.

Policy requests that can be done, I believe they are being done for political reasons and all of us are suffering in New York and we just can't do it.

It's wrong and may cause Democrats to lose seats even though Biden may be safe, that something we have to think about and those jobs that can be filled, they are open right now.

Not taking jobs from longtime Americans.

We even have Republican leaders that are saying we need to allow the migrants to work.

I also think that if the government would help with decompression strategy and stop letting the buses come over here would also help.

Things that can be done we cannot get it done, but I would say this my biggest issue is often times an us versus them scenario in New York City and that is not what we need in the times of crisis to move the city forward.

>> there are thousands of migrant who arrived over the last 15 months you are eligible to work but haven't been helped to fill out the paperwork because there's all kinds of classifications people are coming to the country under and one of the biggest issues of the situation is you have the city not realizing it, federal government not helping.

They have awoken to this over the last couple of weeks but they have not been on top of this and that has been a shocking revelation.

There are thousands of people who could been starting on the path and have not been helped to know that and fill out the paperwork and that is a question of management on all three levels of government.

>> this call for the president to sign an Executive Order, do you think that is a good solution?

>> it seems like a one-size-fits-all solution that dismisses many existing problems around the country.

I remind people that we have seen $5.5 trillion of savings, yes we have people getting back to work but the estimates with these numbers that people are working less hours than they were previously, we have real wages that are not keeping up with inflation and even though we see the jobless number coming down we saw the amount of people who reentered the job force increase and not be able to find a job so we have jobs that are but we also have Americans retiring that are putting it off.

Americans getting off the couch and into the workforce because the constraints of the economy have prevented them from being able to retire, have prevented them from being able to afford their needs from rotisserie chicken to being able to put gas in the car.

Those are real concerns in we end up with a chain of unintended consequences.

If we end up feeling low hanging fruit jobs, other people could be doing them right now.

Some type of backhanded affects to address the crisis.

>> Americans are not taking farm or manufacturing jobs.

>> there not being paid that well.

>> this is a whole other conversation.

The economy has been based on paying low wages always.

So what we want to do it so we want to deport everybody but keep their labor cheap?

Does a whole other conversation.

Right now we have a problem with an influx of immigrants like we always have but we are not getting the support from the government and they're not able to work.

There are many jobs right now that Americans will not take and people are pleading for this.

So there are win-win situations in the near term so we can deal with the crisis while having discussions about how we deal with a holistic approach as you said and immigration reform.

>> I said this earlier but it's an important part of the conversation.

Something the public advocate looks at, which is is people have the ability to work and sustain themselves, we do not have the housing and that has been a failure of government that the government has sped up.

But there have been issues wherever people have been coming from to have affordable housing for people cannot afford to support themselves.

The real challenge in here's a hundred thousand plus new people, even if they could afford a place to live we don't even have the housing read >> the mayor is predicting that the migrant crisis could cost the city $12 billion.

Where does that figure come from?

Do we know?

Are those reliable numbers?

>> the administration has a tendency to overstate some of those costs and understate expected revenues because it makes a lot of sense for an administration to be conservative on some of these numbers.

Mostly as I said earlier this is extrapolating housing costs and they are facing -- basing these numbers on an influx of roughly 10,000 migrants a month.

We don't know that that will continue to be the pattern and we don't know what types of measures might be taken to slow that with the decompression strategy that the mayor has been asking for.

But that is the general gist is extrapolating what is mostly housing costs.

>> we only have a couple of minutes, do you trust that that is in the ballpark and what is your take on the proposed 15% cut across the board of city government?

>> we could not get the mayor to support revenue so we did not have to make these cuts.

The mayor put to people on the board to raise the rents.

It was responsible in how it's being phrase.

The way it's being put forth is the cuts are across the way.

We may have to look at it but you can't just do blanket cuts.

The good that does to the worker who doesn't know if they're going to have a child as we've been trying to recruit people and hire them.

Even if that something we have to look at, the mostly responsible ways to say we are going to have 5% cuts three times in one year across the board.

That is going to be devastating and what it is going to do to the service that has to be provided to people who need it the most is only going to make the situation worse.

>> the public advocate mentioned earlier about the politics of this, the border crisis situation across the country, what is the impacts because I have one more question.

>> there is no austerity plan.

No way for the mayor to cut his way to some type of funds for the migrants.

This does lie with the federal government.

Anything else is us trying to plug her thumb in the dam, so politics aside we have to figure out how to secure our borders.

Beyond that we cannot even agree if we should secure the borders so it starts there and it's going to have to end there because otherwise you're going to have cascading states of emergencies from cities to counties all across New York State and this great country.

>> are going to have to end up there.

At a question for you but were out of time, so we have to end it.

Thank you, it's been a very useful conversation.

>> thank you.

>> take care.

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♪ MetroFocus is made possible by The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.

Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Jody and John Arnhold.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

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The Ambrose Monell Foundation.

Estate of Roland Karlen.

♪