So, Brad, what are YOU doing to solve the migrant crisis?
Mayor Eric Adams clapped back Tuesday after city Comptroller Brad Lander criticized his weekend trip to the southern US border and said it wouldn’t help the city secure emergency aid.
Adams twice called the city’s chief financial officer, a fellow Democrat, “disingenuine” and said he couldn’t “understand the logic” of Lander’s attack.
“Is it political or is it something for the — for the city?” Adams asked. “And so, I just think when people are disingenuine, it’s just, it’s just — it bothers me when people are just disingenuine.”
During an unrelated news conference at City Hall, Adams also blasted his fellow Democrat for not speaking up earlier in favor of emergency funding for the city’s escalating, $1 billion-a-year migrant crisis.
Adams said Lander’s “first tweet to call for help” came during Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Jan. 10 State of the State speech.
Eric Adams spoke out against city Comptroller Brad Lander over his remarks about the mayor’s El Paso trip. Robert Mecea“The people of this city have been going through this for months — for months — and his first communication was, you know, a week or so ago,” Adams fumed. “He’s the comptroller. He should be concerned about our fiscal stability.”
Adams also said Lander’s answer was to “raise taxes on rich people to pay for migrant asylum seekers,” which the mayor has warned will accelerate the flight of wealthy residents from the Big Apple.
“I mean, you’re the comptroller. You should be concerned about the financial hit our city is seeing,” Hizzoner said. “And he should be writing letters with me and going to DC. I don’t know — I don’t know if he actually went to DC at all to advocate for money.”
Adams’ ire was sparked by a Sunday tweet in which Lander said there were “many ways to demand the help we need from Washington & Albany” but that Adams’ visit to El Paso, Texas, “does little to deliver” it.
“Instead, it risks reinforcing a harmful narrative that new immigrants themselves are a problem,” Lander added.
Adams and Lander have been at odds since November, when the comptroller called the mayor’s ill-fated tent city for migrants a “debacle” — then laughed during a TV interview when Adams was shown vowing not to “hide the cost.”
Lander said Adams visiting the border “does little to deliver” funds from Washington or Albany for the migrant crisis. Stephen YangAdams’ Tuesday rant also followed his angry response last week when Lander’s capital counterpart, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, criticized Adams for not including the cost of the migrant crisis in his $102.7 billion budget plan for fiscal 2024.
“Can you ask the comptroller to show you the letter he wrote to the federal government asking for help for us?” Adams told a reporter during a City Hall news conference.
Adams visits the Casa Sacred Heart migrant shelter in El Paso on January 15, 2022. J.R. Hernandez“Can you get him on his cellphone, speakerphone and say, ‘Can you send us the letter that you sent to the federal government saying: “Help New York City”?’ Or ‘Send us a tweet or do an Instagram post with a sign?’”
In a statement, Lander press secretary Chloe Chik said 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.”
Chik said Lander began making public statements in September — more than two months after Adams first sounded the alarm — and provided links to three press releases that included calls for federal and state aid.
Those statements also expressed Landers’ “serious concerns” about Adams’ handling of the crisis and said the mayor’s budget plan “meanders with little direction.”





