(NewsNation) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday made a plea with Republican governors sending migrants to his state to work together on immigration.
“That is what crisis calls for, it calls for coordination,” Adams said on ABC’s “This Week.” “There was no coordination at all with Governor (Greg) Abbott, and governor (Ron) DeSantis just wanted to use this political ploy instead of understanding these are people, these are families.”
Adams said the city’s shelter system is beginning to become overwhelmed, but that by law New York must and will house every migrant that comes. He accused republican governors of playing politics instead of looking for solutions to handle the migrant surge.
“This is an American crisis that we face, a humanitarian crisis made by human hands by some of the governors in our southern states,” he said.
So far, migrants have been sent from Texas on buses or planes to New York, Chicago, Washington and Martha’s Vineyard. Many have already been relocated elsewhere.
But Republicans like Sen. Mike Rounds pushed back on the notion that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are using humans as pawns. Rounds said they’re shining a light on the border crisis that’s long been ignored, in his view, by the Biden administration.
“It’s affecting all of our states, but the administration is not doing anything about it,” Rounds said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “They’re doing their best to try to send a message to the nation about the plight of those individuals that are coming from south of the border.”
Rounds said the White House’s lack of action has led to surges of drugs flowing into his state, and others, in addition to an influx of migrants.
Carla Bustillos, with Vision Diaspora, an NGO dedicated to helping migrants transition to life outside their home countries, has been helping coordinate the response for those arriving in Washington.
She was critical of state and local authorities for not playing a more active role in helping migrants navigate their next steps. Most of it, she says, is left to organizations like hers.
“I wish our local authorities would have a bigger humanitarian response to this crisis,” Bustillos said. “Most of the community has come together.”
Another group that’s responded to the crisis is the National Guard. In Massachusetts, the Guard took the lead in transporting nearly 50 migrants from Martha’s Vineyard to temporary housing on a military base in Cape Cod.
Massachusetts State Sen. Julian Cyr said Sunday on “NewsNation Prime” that it’s clear the immigrants were “tricked.”
“One woman told me that she felt as though she had been kidnapped,” Cyr said. “Some real sort of legal questions are being raised here.”
According to Cyr, the migrants were staying at a shelter in San Antonio, Texas, when they were approached by someone promising work opportunities and housing in Massachusetts.
Cyr concurred with the opinion of State Rep. Dylan Fernandes, who said on Twitter the Justice Department should investigate the flight.
“Their due process rights, their liberty may have been violated,” Cyr said. “We really need to get to the bottom of ‘who really did?’ this and ‘were indeed crimes violated here?'”
