Mayor Adams Attempts to Speed the Process of Putting Migrants to Work

By Yehudit Garmaise

New York City is in desperate need of workers, and Mayor Eric Adams has a great idea as to how to provide employers with the help they need.

Since May, approximately 10,000 South Americans have arrived in New York City from the U.S.’s southern border, and the mayor wants to help the migrants to get to work, the New York Post reported.

After filing asylum applications upon entering the US, however, migrants cannot work as they wait up to six months to receive employment authorization from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

NYC’s unemployment rate is 6.1%, which is nearly double the national average rate of 3.7%, Mayor Adams also pointed out the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

“The strange thing is, particularly in New York and across the country, there’s such a demand for employees,” said Mayor Adams,  who did not specify whether he would promote city jobs or private sector jobs for migrants. Many of my industries are dying to get employees.”

“So if you are a nurse from Venezuela, why am I having you sit down and not be using your medical [training] to help in the hospitals where we have a shortage of nurses.”

“If you are an engineer, we have a shortage of engineers. If you are a teacher, we have a shortage of teachers: bilingual teachers. So that six months delay is creating a bigger crisis.”

To help NYC’s newest city dwellers to start earning paychecks and to boost the city’s strangely low unemployment rate, City Hall officials have asked the White House to simplify and shorten the process of work authorization for migrants.

“We’re telling migrants and asylum seekers, ‘You can come to the country but for six months you can’t work.’ What?” Mayor Adams asked. “Six months you can’t work?” 

“So six months you are having people who just sit idly by, waiting.

“Who’s supposed to pick up the tab for that? If the federal government is saying that for six months you can’t work, then the federal government should be saying for six months we [are] going to compensate you. Because someone has to pay for that.”

The expenses Mayor Adams is referring to include the costs of the salaries for staff at the city’s shelters, emergency hotels, and providers of food, education, and other essentials for the hundreds of migrants who are arriving at the city’s Port Authority every day from the American southern border.

The migrants started arriving in mid-July after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R ) said he could no longer accommodate the thousands of migrants who flood into his state every day.

Instead of continuing to overload Texas social services, shelters, and emergency hotels, three months ago, Gov. Abbott began to bus the migrants who came over the southern border to liberal cities like NYC, Washington, DC, and Chicago, who say they welcome all immigrants without restriction.