During his four-day visit to Latin America, New York City Mayor Eric Adams spoke for migrants’ “right to work” in the United States. In his quest to reach the United States, he traveled to Necocli, a village in northern Colombia, from which thousands of people began the dangerous journey via the Darien jungle into Panama.
The immigration crisis is felt across the Americas and in cities across the United States, including New York, and Adams said the countries in the region need to “get together” to find answers. He urged the federal government to create legitimate employment opportunities for refugees and immigrants.
Adams and other city leaders have urged the federal government to expedite work authorizations for the tens of thousands of migrants who have landed in New York this year, as the city has strained to secure emergency housing.
Since the 1980s, New York has been bound by a special law that mandates housing provision to anybody in need. Adams has challenged the law that requires the city to provide housing for migrants, claiming that the expense of doing so might rise to $12 billion over the next three years.
During his whistlestop trip, Adams stopped in Ecuador and Mexico, meeting with local lawmakers and touring migrant shelters. He said his city is “at capacity,” and his love is boundless, but there aren’t enough resources to house everyone in group shelters or convince them they’ll find work. Adams’s mission in Colombia is not to instruct migrants but to understand what drives them and how to address the current immigration situation best.
More than 200,000 Venezuelans have reportedly journeyed through the Darien Gap to the United States this year. People are leaving South American countries like Colombia, Chile, and Peru for the second and third time.
The communist government of Venezuela has agreed to begin direct deportation flights to Venezuela after the Biden administration decided to return non-asylum-seeking Venezuelans to their native country.
