Mayor Eric Adams’ pressure campaign to get Washington and the federal government to help the city and other states struggling with the ongoing influx of migrants is not stopping.

On Tuesday, fresh off an unexpected trip to El Paso, Adams once again called for a national response.

“It’s called a decompression strategy,” Adams said at an unrelated press conference on Tuesday in response to questions about how he’s talking to other cities and states dealing with an influx of migrants. “How do you spread out this national obligation that we have?”.

What You Need To Know

  • Mayor Eric Adams continues to call for Washington and federal government to step up aid to cities dealing with ongoing influx of asylum seekers

  • Adams over the weekend visited the US-Mexico border and El Paso, Texas, where he met with fellow Democrat, Mayor Oscar Leeser, to see firsthand how the border town is grappling with providing resources to migrants

  • Adams is now calling for a "national czar" to help with the crisis

  • New York City has welcomed more than 40,000 migrants, with more than 29,000 still in the city's car

Adams’ call for a national response comes as the city has welcomed more than 40-thousand asylum seekers in recent months.

The influx has cost the administration about $366 million so far. Adams had previously set the total price tag at $1 billion but now says it could balloon to $2 billion.

“There must be a national czar. I think it should be done through FEMA. We should treat this the same way we treat any major disaster or major crisis that should be coordinating with the border patrol, coordinating with our cities and our states to make sure that we as a country absorb this national issue,” Adams said, as he continues to push for support from the federal government.

Adams was in El Paso, Texas, over the weekend, an unexpected trip his office announced as the city strains to provide resources such as housing, food and health care to asylum seekers.

But some of Adams’ fellow Democrats have criticized his trip saying it does little to get the state or federal government to inject aid.

NYC Comptroller Brad Lander made the comments in a twitter thread on Sunday.

Lander went onto say that immigrants fuel economic growth in the city and called on Adams to increase taxes on wealthy New Yorkers.

Adams took issue with the criticism.

“I mean, you’re the comptroller. You should be concerned about the financial hit our city is taking,” he said.

“New York City flourishes from the contributions of immigrants. Since September, the Comptroller has been consistently calling for the federal and state government to step up to aid the City so that we can welcome immigrants with open arms,” Chloe Chik, press secretary to Lander, said.

Meanwhile, a mutual aid request by the city to the state for housing up to 500 migrants is still pending.

Adams said on Tuesday that though there is no more room in the city for arriving asylum seekers, the city has no plans to stop housing those arriving daily.

So far, the city has received $8 million from FEMA and another $2 million from Sen. Chuck Schumer’s office in aid.