(NewsNation) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams spoke out against sanctuary restrictions that he says make it harder to turn over migrants suspected of crimes to federal agents in an interview with political commentator Tucker Carlson.
The mayor, who was indicted on federal bribery and campaign finance charges last year, took issue with how the previous Biden administration handled immigration.
Adams said he believes the issue stems from the border, not necessarily how sanctuary cities operate. Sanctuary cities have policies that discourage law enforcement from cooperating with immigration authorities.
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Even fixing the border, though, doesn’t help city officials deal with the influx of migrants into the city, Adams said. Over the last few years, there’s been a large number of people coming into NYC, including migrants on buses sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
To Carlson, Adams said he told former President Joe Biden about the problem.
“We need to fix our border and we need to just stop allowing people to come into the country with no destiny,” Adams said to Biden. “We don’t know what we’re doing with them. We have to where to house them.”
President Donald Trump has promised hard-line immigration policies in his second non-consecutive term, including mass deportations.
When it comes to migrants who are committing crimes, Adams says he plans on cooperating with immigration officials. Having the NYPD work with federal agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a departure from how sanctuary cities work, so Adams said he’s looking for workarounds to this.
Multiple studies analyzing crime data have shown that immigrants commit crimes at a much lower rate than U.S. citizens for both violent and nonviolent crimes.
Adams did say in the interview he does not support kicking out otherwise law-abiding asylum seekers who are in New York City.
“That immigrant family who’s trying to get a pathway to becoming a citizen, living out this amazing American Dream — I don’t think they should be rounded up in the middle of the night,” Adams said.
NewsNation digital producers Steph Whiteside and Cassie Buchman contributed to this report.
