Adams Cuts Police, Education Budgets To Deal With Immigration Crisis

(RepublicanReport.org) – The city of New York spent about $1.5 billion on asylum seekers in 2023, and leaders plan to spend another $11 billion on the problem in fiscal years 2024 and 2025. With little help from the federal and state governments, the city is virtually on its own in managing the explosion of new migrants coming to the Big Apple with the hopes of starting over. Instead of reining in his spending, Mayor Eric Adams (D) has decided to cut police and education budgets.

Adams shared the news in a press release on November 16. He said he’s working to balance the city’s budget to remain in line with the law, but the money just isn’t there. Tax revenue hasn’t been growing quickly enough, the costs of taking in migrants have been increasing, and pandemic stimulus funds are nearly gone. His only option, he claims, is to make “tough but necessary” cuts. He adds that Washington, DC, needs to step up to the plate with added relief.

The New York Times reports that the decision will result in a hiring freeze on new police officers, taking the force down to under 30,000 members — a figure the New York Police Department hasn’t seen since the 1980s. Education will also take a heavy blow, losing in excess of $1 billion over the next two years. Universal prekindergarten and summer school programs will take heavy hits, and libraries will no longer have the funds to open on Sundays. A composting program the city had planned on starting in an effort to tackle rat infestations in the Bronx and on Staten Island will also need to go on hold. The city currently has a yearly budget of roughly $110 billion.

Immigration in certain sanctuary cities like New York has skyrocketed over recent years, the result of humanitarian crises driving people out of areas in South America as well as Caribbean regions like Haiti and Cuba. Many of these displaced people seek out the United States as their destination with the hopes of finding employment opportunities that aren’t available in Latin American countries.