NEW YORK, NY - New York City’s Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD Captain, told gathered reporters on Tuesday that he would like to speak with President-elect Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and is open to working collaboratively on solving the city’s problems with illegal immigrant criminals.
Adams responded dismissively to criticisms from fellow Democrats and the radical left and challenged them, “Well, cancel me because I'm going to protect the people of this city."
"Cancel me, I don't care," he said.
According to Fox News, Adams emphasized the city welcomes immigrants and pointed to the work and expense that New York has undertaken to assist asylum seekers in applying for Temporary Protected Status and work authorization and noted officials have seen a significant decrease in new arrivals.
However, he stated, “we cannot ignore … the fact that the American people have communicated to us loudly and clearly: We have a broken system. They want to fix, and we need to fix our immigration system.”
Adams told the reporters that he had already contacted the former Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and told Homan he would speak with him.
"I’m not going to be warring with this administration, I'm going to be working with this administration. President Trump is the president-elect. And whomever he chooses to run his agencies. I'm looking forward to sitting down and see how do we better New York."
He explained, "I would like to speak with our border czar and find out what his plans are. Where our common grounds are, we can work together. And I strongly believe, my history is sitting down with those across the aisle with different ways of thinking and sit down and share my ideas."
"I believe I have some ideas that could deal with this issue, and we can reach what the American people have been saying to us: secure our borders, address the people who are committing violent acts in our country, and make sure that … our citizens are going to be safe." He stressed that he believes illegal immigrants who are in the U.S. and have committed no other crimes "should not be rounded up in the middle of the night."
However, he made a marked exception for illegal immigrant criminals saying, "Those are the people I am talking about. And I would love to sit down with the border czar and hear his thoughts on how are we going to address those who are harming our citizens."