The mayor planned to spend his morning serving pies and talking about Thanksgiving. Instead, he also found himself fielding questions on a far different topic.
“The accusation absolutely did not happen. I don’t recall who this person is. I never recall even meeting them. I spent my life protecting people,” Adams said.
In the lawsuit, a woman claims Adams sexually assaulted her when they both worked for the city and she is seeking at least $5 million. The suit does not provide specific details on the allegations.
It says, “The claims brought here allege intentional and negligent acts and omissions for physical, psychological, and other injuries suffered as a result of conduct that would constitute sexual offenses.”
It is one of three Adult Survivors Act lawsuits filed this week by New York City-based attorney Megan Goddard.
“But this absolutely never happened, and it’s just unfortunate,” Adams said.
CBS New York does not name people who claim to be sexual abuse victims unless they choose to publicly identify themselves.
The lawsuit is not just against Adams but also against the NYPD Transit Bureau and the NYPD Guardians Association.
CBS New York reached out to them, along with the attorney who filed the suit, and the accuser, but we have not heard back.
Tim McNicholas is a reporter for CBS New York. He joined the team in September 2022 after working in Chicago, Indianapolis, Toledo and Hastings, Nebraska.
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The FBI investigation appears focused on links between Turkey and the Adams campaign, a country with which the mayor has long fostered close ties. The New York Times, which obtained portions of the search warrant in the raid of the fundraiser’s home, reported that the FBI was investigating whether Adams’ campaign conspired with Turkey’s government to pocket illicit overseas donations.
Adams, a first-term Democrat, and the fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, 25, have not been accused of wrongdoing.
FBI agents leave the Brooklyn home of Mayor Adams’ campaign consultant, Brianna Suggs, earlier this month. (Obtained by Daily News)
New York City mayors have often found themselves caught up in corruption investigations. In this case, the publicly surfaced details of the inquiry into Adams’ campaign and the disclosure that the FBI seized the mayor’s devices have put questions about Turkey and its connection to New York City at the center of local politics.
“We are fully cooperating,” the mayor said at a news conference last week, referring to the FBI. “My role is to allow them to do their job without interference, and I have to do my job of continuing to make sure the city navigates the various issues that we are facing.”
Adams’ lawyer Boyd Johnson acknowledged that an unnamed individual acted “improperly.” The person has been placed on leave, according to City Hall.
Many details related to the inquiry remain unknown at this point. Here’s a look at key recent events, and what is known so far.
Nov. 2: The day the news broke
On Nov. 2, the mayor flew to Washington, D.C., for meetings with the White House on the migrant crisis, which he has described as the most pressing issue facing the city. But almost as soon as he had arrived in the nation’s capital, he turned around and headed back to New York to address what his office characterized as a “matter.”
That morning, FBI agents had raided the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, home of Suggs, who has claimed credit for raising $18 million for Adams in the 2021 election cycle. The Suggs raid was reportedly not the only location the feds hit that day; CNN reported that about 100 FBI agents carried out searches or interviews at a dozen locations early that morning.
Federal agents raided the home of Brianna Suggs. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
According to a bombshell search warrant reported by The New York Times, the raid on Suggs’ townhouse home is part of a federal public corruption investigation into whether Adams’ 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government and a Brooklyn construction firm to funnel foreign cash into the campaign’s coffers via straw donors.
The warrant reportedly sought evidence of a conspiracy to steal federal funds and make illegal campaign donations with foreign money and fraud, and whether Adams’ campaign secured perks for Turkish government officials and executives at the construction company, a Williamsburg-based outfit called KSK Construction Group.
Eleven employees of KSK, the Brooklyn construction firm listed in the search warrant, donated $13,950 each on the same day in May 2021 to Adams’ campaign, according to city records. Among the KSK employees listed as donating was the firm’s owner, Erden Arkan, who states on his LinkedIn profile that he received his education a Istanbul University in Turkey. Executives at the company appear to have close ties to one of Turkey’s largest political parties.
The FBI also searched Abbasova’s home, in New Jersey, and the home of Cenk Öcal, a one-time Turkish Airlines executive who worked on Adams’ transition team, according to the Times.
Evan Thies, a spokesman for Adams, said Friday that Suggs continues to work for the mayor’s 2025 campaign.
Suggs and Öcal could not be reached for comment.
An email reply from Abbasova on Friday said, “I am out of the office with no access to email.”
The mayor’s phones
As Adams was leaving an event on the night of Nov. 6, the FBI approached him and requested that he hand over electronic devices, according to a statement from the mayor’s lawyer. The FBI took at least two phones from the mayor, and returned them within days, according to a person with knowledge of the action.
Following that seizure, it emerged Adams had made an inquiry to the Fire Department regarding permitting for the new Turkish Consulate tower in Manhattan in 2021, when Adams was the Democratic nominee for mayor. Adams has acknowledged that he reached out to the then-fire commissioner, Daniel Nigro, about concerns that the building would not be open in time for the United Nations General Assembly at the end of summer 2021.
The mayor has presented his outreach to the Fire Department as constituent services. He has suggested he asked the FDNY to look into the matter, but did not direct the department to do anything.
“I had no authority to do so,” Adams said Tuesday. “I was the [Brooklyn] borough president.”
The building was granted a temporary certificate of occupancy that allowed it to open.
An FDNY chief involved in that process said he felt he would lose his job if he didn’t press for approval of an inspection at the new building even though the fire safety system wasn’t functioning. FDNY Chief Joseph Jardin, who is suing the FDNY, has been questioned by FBI investigators looking into allegations that the Turkish government funneled illegal foreign cash into the mayor’s campaign coffers in 2021, sources said.
Jardin was also questioned about a list of real estate developers City Hall allegedly wanted to fast-track through the FDNY’s fire safety inspection process. The list — known as the “DMO list” because it fell under the purview of the deputy mayor of operations — “became a mechanism to press the FDNY to permit politically connected developers to cut the inspection line,” according to Jardin’s lawsuit.
The list reportedly dated at least to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. De Blasio declined to comment.
Adams had held a lengthy news conference on Nov. 8, two days after the seizure, but the incident did not come up. News that the FBI had taken Adams’ devices did not emerge publicly until Nov. 10, when the Times reported the seizure.
Adams has defended not immediately disclosing the seizure to the news media.
“My information was completely accurate,” Adams said Tuesday. “As a former member of law enforcement, it is always my belief: Don’t interfere with an ongoing review, and don’t try to do these reviews through the press.”
Adams and Turkey: Multiple ties
Mayor Eric Adams, right, visits a Turkish mosque in Brooklyn where donations were being collected for victims of the earthquakes centered in southern Turkey in February 2023. At left is the consul general of Turkey in New York, Reyhan Ozgur. (Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
At the time, Adams was Brooklyn’s borough president.
Last year, Adams said he had visited Turkey about six times, expressing admiration for the country’s spirit and history. Overall, Adams attended nearly 80 events celebrating Turkey during his time as Brooklyn’s borough president, according to Politico.
Adams has traveled widely as a public official. And as mayor he has brought unique zest to flag raisings for dozens of countries, hailing New York’s status as a global city.
Yes, that sounds implausible, not least because the job is currently occupied. But Eric Adams is suddenly contending with an FBI investigation that has quickly escalated in seriousness. First, the home of the mayor’s chief campaign fundraiser was searched. Then, agents approached the mayor himself on a Manhattan street, seizing two cell phones and an iPad, which the FBI later returned. Adams and the campaign fundraiser have not been charged with anything, and the mayor has said repeatedly that he has done nothing wrong and is cooperating with any law enforcement inquiries.
None of this has stopped the speculation game from whirring into full speed: If Adams departs, who’s next in line to be mayor? Most of the names circulating have low profiles with the city’s voting public: Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Comptroller Brad Lander, and State Senator Jessica Ramos. But lurking and watching is Cuomo, the former governor who resigned in August 2021 under the very dark cloud of a report from the state attorney general, Letitia James, that she said corroborated sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo by 11 women, with accusations ranging from his having groped one aide to his having initiated creepy conversations about dating habits with another. Cuomo denied those allegations at the time and has been aggressively trying to refute them ever since.
He has also been calculating a comeback. Last year he reportedly considered challenging his successor, Kathy Hochul, in the governor’s race. Now sources in Cuomo’s orbit say members of the city’s real estate and labor union classes are urging Cuomo to mount a run for City Hall if Adams is pushed out by legal troubles. Cuomo isn’t saying yes. But he isn’t saying no, either. The way everyone describes Cuomo’s reaction: He’s listening.
Publicly, he’s been throwing cold water on the idea. Sort of. “I don’t deal in hypotheticals,” Cuomo said Tuesday when asked about a possible run during a glitchy remote interview on Good Day New York. “Mayor Adams is going to be the mayor…. I think we should stand behind the mayor unless they give us a reason to say otherwise.” His spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, tells me, “The future is the future and he gets these questions often, which I think are fueled by the fact that many people are facing a crisis in confidence in government at many levels and now view the circumstances in which he left office as the political railroading it was.”
Just in case the future arrives sooner rather than later, Cuomo’s allies are already honing a rationale for a run: that the former governor’s obsession with control and details is even better suited for managing a sprawling city government than it was for navigating Albany. That his name recognition, experience, and $7 million in leftover campaign funds (as of July) would make Cuomo the instant front-runner. And they believe that the biggest selling point, at least to a segment of the city’s business establishment, would be that Cuomo, who is currently registered to vote in Westchester County, would save the city from being governed by a radical lefty—though no business leaders were willing to say any of that on the record. One major developer, Larry Silverstein, whose company owns multiple World Trade Center buildings, among other properties, says he has not spoken with Cuomo since the resignation and that he “definitely did not suggest to anyone that [Cuomo] might be a good mayor.”
In a significant escalation in a criminal investigation into New York Mayor Eric Adams’s victorious 2021 campaign, Federal Bureau of Investigation investigators seized at least two cell phones and an iPad from the mayor early last week, The New York Timesreported Friday afternoon.
The investigation, which concerns whether the Adams campaign conspired with the Turkish government to solicit illegal donations via a Brooklyn-based construction company, burst into public view earlier this month when FBI agents raided the Crown Heights apartment of a former Adams intern and current chief fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs. The agents seized two laptops, three iPhones, a manila folder labeled “Eric Adams,” seven “contribution card binders,” and other physical materials, according to the search warrant obtained by the Times.
On Friday, Adams’s lawyer, Boyd Johnson, said in a statement that the mayor was cooperating with the FBI and had “proactively reported” at least one person who engaged in improper behavior. The statement did not say whether the reported conduct was related to the FBI seizure of Adams’ devices. Johnson said that Adams has not been accused of any wrongdoing and “immediately complied with the FBI’s request and provided them with electronic devices.”
In his statement, the mayor said, “As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation — and I will continue to do exactly that.” Adams added that he had “nothing to hide.”
According to a source who spoke to the NYT, FBI agents climbed into Adams’s SUV after an event early last week and executed the search warrant. The cell phones and iPad were returned to the mayor after a few days, but investigators had the legal authority to copy data on seized devices.
On Wednesday—two days after the FBI had seized his devices, and two days before the seizure was reported to the public—Adams said he would be “shocked” if anyone on his campaign had done anything wrong. “I cannot tell you how much I start the day with telling my team, ‘We gotta follow the law. Gotta follow the law,’” Adams said. “Almost to the point that I’m annoying.”
When reporters asked whether the mayor was in touch with investigators following the raid of Suggs’s apartment, another Adams lawyer, Lisa Zornberg, preemptively answered the question. “The answer is yes, of course we are,” Zornberg told reporters. “The mayor has pledged his cooperation, and we’ve been in touch.” Zornberg failed to mention the FBI search.
During Wednesday’s press conference, Adams said he’d met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan just once, when the two “exchanged pleasantries” at an event during Adams’ tenure as Brooklyn borough president. But Adams has traveled to Turkey on numerous occasions, bragging last month, “I’m probably the only mayor in the history of this city that has not only visited Turkey once, but I think I’m on my sixth or seventh visit to Turkey.” Turkish entities reportedly paid for some of those visits.
On Friday, just before the news of the FBI seizure broke, The City reporter Katie Honan asked Adams about early speculation that, amidst this investigation, Adams will face several primary challengers in 2025. “Wait before you hate,” Adams cryptically replied.
The FBI on Friday seized New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ phone and other electronic devices as part of a campaign fundraising investigation. The FBI is investigating whether Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign conspired with the Turkish government and others to receive foreign donations. Roxana Saberi has details.
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Adams’ campaign confirmed his electronic devices were taken by FBI agents on Monday night, but his lawyer issued a somewhat cryptic statement that appeared to indicate he found out someone close to him acted improperly.
“After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators. The Mayor has been and remains committed to cooperating in this matter,” said Adams’ campaign attorney Boyd Johnson. “On Monday night, the FBI approached the mayor after an event. The Mayor immediately complied with the FBI’s request and provided them with electronic devices. The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing and continues to cooperate with the investigation.”
On Wednesday, at his weekly meeting with reporters, Adams faced questions mostly about the stunning FBI raid on the home of his chief campaign fundraiser Briana Suggs. The mayor did not reveal that he had been approached by FBI agents who confiscated his electronic devices two days earlier.
“As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation-and I will continue to do exactly that. I have nothing to hide,” Adams said in a statement Friday.
Sources told CBS New York political reporter Marcia Kramer the information Adams’ lawyers turned over to investigators did not involve Suggs, but someone else in the mayor’s circle.
Sources refused to characterize the person, but information about them was believed to be on one of the mayor’s devices, which were apparently returned to him after a few days.
Marcia Kramer joined CBS2 in 1990 as an investigative and political reporter. Prior to CBS2, she was the City Hall bureau chief at the New York Daily News.
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Across Chicago, more than 2,500 migrants, including children, are sleeping on the ground in and outside of police stations waiting to be placed in overflowing city shelters. Charlie De Mar has more.
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Longtime LGBTQ rights activist Allen Roskoff’s club is launching a campaign to recruit a progressive Democrat to run against Mayor Adams in 2025 — marking the first official left-wing effort aimed at ousting the incumbent, who already holds a big fundraising edge ahead of the next election cycle.
Roskoff, an erstwhile friend to Adams who has soured on him lately over what he sees as the mayor’s conservative tendencies, told the Daily News last week that the effort, dubbed “Coalition for Mayoral Choice,” will be modeled after a similar initiative he and other progressives undertook in 1981 to challenge then-Mayor Ed Koch.
In that time, Roskoff and his compatriots recruited liberal Brooklyn Assemblyman Frank Barbaro to run against Koch. After being outspent 10-to-1, Barbaro clinched 36% of the vote in that year’s Democratic primary, losing to Koch, who received 59.8%.
But Roskoff said he’s not intimidated by Adams’ war-chest and argued it’s critical that New York City Democrats are presented with an alternative in the next mayoral election.
“We deserve better; we deserve a choice,” Roskoff said before listing off his various grievances with Adams. “The world watches as New York City navigates complex issues, from the lack of affordable housing to living wage employment to the ongoing debate surrounding the migrant influx and New York City’s responsibility as a sanctuary city. Regrettably, the discourse around these topics, propagated by Mayor Adams, has been marked by anger, vitriol and right-wing talking points. Instead of welcoming our new neighbors, the mayor has castigated them.”
New York City Gun Violence Prevention Task Force
Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News
Mayor Eric Adams
A spokesman for Adams’ reelection campaign did not immediately return a request for comment Sunday on Roskoff’s announcement.
Adams won the mayoral primary in 2021, defeating 12 challengers to become the Democratic nominee. The primary race included progressives such as Dianne Morales and Maya Wiley, often seen as foils to Adams’ more centrist leanings. Adams went on to win the general election over Republican Curtis Sliwa.
Roskoff declined to name any politicians in particular he’d like to see mount a 2025 challenge against Adams.
He said his Jim Owles group has already met with several local elected officials and activists who are interested in joining the coalition. The goal is for the coalition to conduct a search for progressives willing to challenge Adams and then narrow it down to one candidate they can coalesce around, according to Roskoff.
“We want to make it clear that our intention is to promote a progressive perspective in addressing the fundamental needs of our city,” he said. “We urge the progressive community to unite behind a single mayoral candidate and outline how they intend to address our unique requirements while upholding our core principles.”
The coalition won’t set up a website or a fundraising machinery for starters, though Roskoff said that could change.
For weeks, rumors have swirled in political circles about who could pull off a primary fight against Adams, who has drawn the ire of the city’s progressive class by calling for steep spending cuts across a variety of city agencies.
New York Budget
Hans Pennink/AP
Sen. Jessica Ramos
Names floated as potential contenders include Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Brooklyn Assemblyman Zellnor Myrie.
Along with the launch of the Coalition for Mayoral Choice, Roskoff’s club planned to host a barbecue in Manhattan on Sunday afternoon that was expected to be attended by several prominent progressives, including Ramos.
Ramos did not return a request for comment Friday.
“We, the people, deserve a mayor who values competence above special treatment,” he said. “We, the people, deserve a mayor who does not appoint bureaucrats with anti-LGBTQ sentiments.”
New York City began drying out Saturday after being soaked by one of its wettest days in decades as traffic resumed on highways, subways and airports that were temporarily shuttered by Friday’s severe rainfall.
Record rainfall — more than 8.65 inches (21.97 centimeters) — fell at John F. Kennedy International Airport, surpassing the record for any September day set during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said.
Parts of Brooklyn saw more than 7.25 inches (18.41 centimeters), with at least one spot recording 2.5 inches (6 centimeters) in a single hour, turning some streets into knee-deep canals and stranding drivers on highways.
More rain was expected Saturday but the worst was over, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday morning during a briefing at a transportation control center in Manhattan.
A section of the FDR Drive sits submerged in flood waters, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023, in New York.
Jake Offenhartz / AP
“We’ve seen a whole lot of rainfall in a very short period of time,” the governor said. “But the good news is that the storm will pass, and we should see some clearing of waterways today and tonight.”
The deluge came two years after the remnants of Hurricane Ida dumped record-breaking rain on the Northeast and killed at least 13 people in New York City, mostly in flooded basement apartments. Although no deaths or severe injuries have been reported, Friday’s storm stirred frightening memories.
Ida killed three of Joy Wong’s neighbors, including a toddler. And on Friday, water began lapping against the front door of her building in Woodside, Queens.
“I was so worried,” she said, explaining it became too dangerous to leave. “Outside was like a lake, like an ocean.”
A guardian carries a child as his partner holds the umbrellas following heavy rains on Friday, Sept. 29, 2023, in New York.
Andres Kudacki / AP
Within minutes, water filled the building’s basement nearly to the ceiling. After the family’s deaths in 2021, the basement was turned into a recreation room. It is now destroyed.
City officials received reports of six flooded basement apartments Friday, but all occupants got out safely.
Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams declared states of emergency and urged people to stay put if possible.
Virtually every subway line was at least partly suspended, rerouted or running with delays. Metro-North commuter rail service from Manhattan was suspended for much of the day but began resuming by evening. The Long Island Rail Road was snarled, 44 of the city’s 3,500 buses became stranded and bus service was disrupted citywide, transit officials said.
Residents watch as workers attempt to clear a drain in flood waters, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
Jake Offenhartz / AP
Some service interruptions continued Saturday.
Traffic hit a standstill earlier in the day on a stretch of the FDR Drive, a major artery along Manhattan’s east side. With water above car tires, some drivers abandoned their vehicles.
On a street in Brooklyn’s South Williamsburg neighborhood, workers were up to their knees in water as they tried to unclog a storm drain while cardboard and other debris floated by. Some people arranged milk crates and wooden boards to cross flooded sidewalks.
Flights into LaGuardia were briefly halted in the morning, and then delayed, because of water in the refueling area. Flooding also forced the closure of one of the airport’s three terminals for several hours. Terminal A resumed normal operations around 8 p.m. local time.
Hoboken, New Jersey, and other cities and towns near New York City also experienced flooding.
Residents watch as workers attempt to clear a drain in flood waters, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
Jake Offenhartz / AP
Why so much rain?
The remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia over the Atlantic Ocean combined with a mid-latitude system arriving from the west, at a time of year when conditions coming off the ocean are particularly juicy for storms, National Weather Service meteorologist Ross Dickman said. This combination storm parked itself over New York for 12 hours.
The weather service had warned of 3 to 5 inches (7.5 to 13 centimeters) of rain and told emergency managers to expect more than 6 inches (15 centimeters) in some places, Dickman said.
As the planet warms, storms are forming in a hotter atmosphere that can hold more moisture, making extreme rainfall more frequent, according to atmospheric scientists.
In the case of Friday’s storm, nearby ocean temperatures were below normal and air temperatures weren’t too hot. Still, it became the third time in two years that rain fell at rates near 2 inches (5 centimeters) per hour in Central Park, which is unusual, Columbia University climate scientist Adam Sobel said.
The park recorded 5.8 inches (14.73 centimeters) of rain by nightfall Friday.
Schools in New York City are scrambling to enroll migrant children as the city also tries to house them and their families. Astrid Martinez reports on the duel efforts.
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New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday that the city has no space or money to provide support for the approximately 100,000 migrants who have arrived in the last year, including more than 13,000 bussed in by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Omar Villafranca reports.
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New York City Mayor Eric Adams told CBS News, “Everything is on the table” as the city struggles to house migrants seeking asylum. A new facility on Randall’s Island is expected to house up to 3,000 migrants and Adams is also considering using a closed federal prison. Jericka Duncan has the latest.
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As tens of thousands of migrants overwhelm New York City’s shelter system, Mayor Eric Adams has tried every tactic to enlist help in dealing with the crisis. He has been pleading with New York governor Kathy Hochul for assistance, with only modest success. He has praised Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, who are both Democrats from Brooklyn, for pushing to appropriate nearly $105 million in aid. He’s blasted President Joe Biden for failing to better manage the flow of people crossing the US southern border—an outburst that backfired politically, with Adams dropped from a list of Biden reelection surrogates. Yet the city’s freshest and perhaps most powerful tool is the product of an unhappy accident: More than a hundred migrants waiting to enter an asylum intake center in midtown Manhattan last week were seen sleeping on the sidewalk. The tragic spectacle generated a wealth of media coverage and gave Adams an opening to dial up pressure for federal help. “For someone to say they think it was strategic, to me, feels insulting,” says Anne Williams-Isom, the city’s deputy mayor for health and human services. “We’ve been killing ourselves 24/7 to try to make sure no one sleeps on the streets. This was a perfect storm.”
There has been plenty to question in the Adams administration’s response to the yearlong surge of migrants. The city has erected, then rapidly folded—and now plans to install again—a large tent shelter on an island along the East River. It backed away from placing people in a Brooklyn public school gym after neighborhood protests. City Hall handed a no-bid $432 million contract for migrant case management to a company that had previously provided COVID testing. Adams has at times sounded jarringly hostile—once claiming that the city was being “destroyed” by the migrant crisis—especially given New York’s history as a haven for the tired and poor.
Yet the mayor’s team has also opened 198 sites, as of this week, that give new arrivals a temporary place to stay, in keeping with a “right to shelter” mandate that’s unique for a major city (and a law that the city has been trying to weaken in court). And the city reportedly found beds for the roughly 100 migrants that were sleeping on the Manhattan sidewalk outside an intake center last week. Since the spring of 2022, nearly 100,000 migrants have arrived in New York, Adams has said. That’s a lot of people, even in a city of more than eight million, and it has pushed the nightly shelter population north of 100,000, Williams-Isom told me. The estimated cost of housing and caring for all those newcomers is even more staggering: $12 billion over three fiscal years, according to Adams. At some point, the migrant crisis was bound to become a numbers problem, even if the mayor had handled its management flawlessly.
Last month, after a meeting between Adams and Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, a DHS “assessment team” was sent to the city to evaluate the migrant crisis. Otherwise, New York’s requests have largely gone unanswered, a City Hall official says. The more progressive Democratic members of New York’s congressional delegation, who have often been at odds with Adams, have largely been silent or supportive during the mayor’s recent push for more White House help, though Congressman Jerry Nadler last week offered a mild defense of the administration. “They’re doing what they can,” Nadler told New York’s Fox 5. “Of course, the real solution is comprehensive immigration reform, which we’ve been trying to do for decades, but the Republicans in the Senate keep blocking it.”
The top priority, Williams-Isom says, is for the Biden administration to devise a “decompression” strategy for the southern border that would steer larger numbers of migrants to locations other than New York. She would also like to see Washington expedite work authorization for migrants, something the city has been seeking for months. But the list also includes items that seem eminently doable, including access to federal real estate within the city’s boundaries, such as Floyd Bennett Field, a decommissioned airport in Brooklyn.
The White House has routinely—and correctly—pointed the finger at congressional Republicans who refuse to make a deal on comprehensive immigration reform. But the president’s reelection campaign next year may also be a factor. Last December, a Biden insider told me that immigration loomed as a major vulnerability, and the issue has only grown messier since then. An Adams associate wonders if Biden’s team is trying to avoid greater political ownership of New York’s migrant troubles, so as not to invite louder Republican campaign attacks.
“We are committed to working to identify ways to improve efficiencies and maximize the resources the federal government can provide,” a White House spokesperson told me Thursday. Per the White House, the president’s senior adviser Tom Perez went to New York on Thursday to work with state and city officials on the migrant situation. “Since the administration’s border enforcement and management plan went into full effect, unlawful border crossings are lower than before Title 42 lifted. However, only Congress can reform our broken immigration system and provide additional resources to communities across the country.”
Republicans’ barrages, many of them racist, are very likely to be launched against Biden anyway, especially if front-runner Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. And if the president plays it safe on immigration, he could miss an opportunity to win over crucial voters. “Immigration cuts both ways as an election issue,” says Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who worked on both of Barack Obama’s victorious White House runs. “Republicans are a lot better at using it as a wedge and a motivating issue, because their rallying thematic is Gotham City, and it’s all fear and rage: ‘We are under attack and these people pouring across the borders are an invasion.’ But there’s also a group of voters who are incredibly important to us who care about immigration, some of them middle-of-the-road voters who don’t understand why there isn’t a pathway to citizenship.”
The realist political calculation is for Biden to do the minimum on immigration, and hope that in a second term he’s working with solid Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. But the humane thing—the presidential thing—to do now is to give New York all the bureaucratic changes and financial resources that Biden can muster. And on Thursday afternoon, all the suffering and political pressure showed some possible signs of having an impact: The president, as part of a $40 billion appropriations request to Congress, included $600 million for “shelter and services program grants.” Here’s hoping the money is approved, and that some of it makes its way to New York. Or a whole lot more people may end up spending their nights on city sidewalks.
The five boroughs of New York City are currently hosting approximately 57,000 asylum seekers and the number continues to rise. Mayor Eric Adams sits down with “CBS Mornings” for a closer look at the humanitarian crisis growing there and what he hopes the Biden Administration will do to fix it.
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A 17-year-old high school student has been arrested on hate crime charges in connection with last weekend’s stabbing death of a professional dancer during a dispute at a New York City gas station.
The teen, whose name was not released, was taken into custody Friday on charges of second-degree murder as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon in the slaying of 28-year-old O’Shae Sibley, officials announced in a news conference Saturday.
In the late-night hours of July 29, Sibley, who is gay, was dancing with friends to a Beyoncé song while pumping gas at a Brooklyn station when he and his friends were confronted by another group, officials said.
The altercation was captured on security video.
“Recovered video showed the victim and his friends being confronted by a group of males and being harassed,” NYPD Assistant Police Chief Joe Kenny told reporters Saturday.
“We can see on the video a heated verbal dispute quickly turns physical,” Kenny said.
Kenny disclosed that the group demanded that Sibley “stop dancing,” and “called him derogatory names, and used homophobic slurs against him. They also made anti-Black statements, all while demanding that they simply stop dancing.”
The harassment continued for about four minutes. The suspect then stabbed Sibley once in the chest with a “sharp object.” Sibley fell to the ground as the suspect fled in a Toyota Highlander.
People gather at a memorial for O’Shae Sibley on Aug. 4, 2023, in New York City. The memorial was held at the Brooklyn gas station where he was murdered last weekend while dancing with friends. A 17-year-old suspect was arrested Aug. 4 in the slaying.
Getty Images
Sibley was rushed to a local hospital, where he died of his wounds in the early morning hours of July 30.
The suspect, who attends a Brooklyn high school, was “quickly identified” by authorities, Kenny said, and his surrender was “arranged through his attorney.”
Kenny said the suspect “is being charged solely” at this time, with no immediate plans to charge the others that were in his group.
In a Facebook Live video earlier this week, Otis Pena said that he was friends with Sibley and witnessed the stabbing.
“They killed my brother right in front of me,” he said.
“Just pumping gas and listening to ‘Renaissance’ and just having a good time. Y’all killed O’Shae,” Pena said through tears, referring to Beyoncé’s latest album.
Sibley was a well-known dancer in the ballroom community, which is made up predominantly of LGBTQ+ men of color, CBS New York reports. An outpouring of support for Sibley and his family has been widespread, with Beyoncé herself posting about Sibley’s death on her website.
“This is a city where you are free to express yourself, and that expression should never end with any form of violence,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Saturday.
A rally honoring Sibley was held Friday at the Brooklyn gas station where he was stabbed. A memorial and candlelight vigil organized by the LGBTQ+ community was also being held Saturday night.
The migrant crisis in New York City is worsening as many asylum seekers waiting to be processed are forced to sleep on sidewalks outside of Manhattan hotels. The mayors of several major U.S. cities, including New York City Mayor Eric Adams, have asked the Biden administration for federal assistance. Meg Oliver reports.
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The migrant crisis in New York City is reaching a breaking point, with some asylum seekers now being forced to sleep on the streets.
In midtown Manhattan, asylum seekers are sleeping on the sidewalks outside the Roosevelt Hotel, which is now a migrant processing center for city shelters.
Adrian Daniel Jose is among the dozens of people waiting to get services. Leaving his wife and three kids in Venezuela, the 36-year-old said the journey to the U.S. was dangerous.
He said he was robbed in Mexico, forcing him to cross the border with just the clothes on his back and a pair of taped-together glasses.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Monday said of the crisis, “From this moment on, it’s downhill. There is no more room.”
Since last spring, more than 95,000 migrants have arrived in New York City, according to the mayor’s office.
Migrants wait outside the Roosevelt Hotel hoping for a place to stay on August 2, 2023, in New York City. City officials are considering housing the influx of migrants in tents in Central Park in Manhattan and in Prospect Park in Brooklyn as the numbers arriving daily overwhelm available facilities.
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To reduce the chaos, Adams and the mayors of Chicago and Denver are asking the Biden administration to expedite work permits for migrants coming to their cities.
Thousands have been bused from Texas to cities across the country as part of Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s controversial Operation Lone Star.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Texas troopers have begun detaining fathers traveling with their families, while children and their mothers are turned over to Border Patrol. The move is reminiscent of the Trump administration policy that separated some families for years.
Back in New York City, Russia’s Natalia and Maksim Subbotina are seeking political asylum. They arrived in Mexico after months of waiting, crossed into the U.S. and arrived from Texas on Tuesday.
“It’s so hard. In my country, I was a famous professor. I have a home, but, uh, this is first day and I haven’t,” Natalia Subbotina said.
She told CBS News she hasn’t slept since she arrived because “I can’t sleep in this situation. I can’t sleep. It’s not safe for me. For him.”
To cut down on illegal border crossings, the Biden administration barred asylum claims from those who don’t first seek refuge in other countries. But a district judge halted that order last month, and officials must end that policy next week unless a higher court intervenes.
The White House defended its response to the asylum seeker influx facing New York Friday, arguing that without congressional action, the administration is limited in what it can do, following a letter from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul urging more action.
The growing number of migrants at the US-Mexico border has posed a steep challenge for the Biden administration. It’s a delicate issue for a White House dogged by fierce criticism from the left and right over its handling of the US southern border and remains a political vulnerability amid Republican attacks as the 2024 presidential election approaches and Democratic local officials face pressures at home.
Hochul’s announcement this week is the latest salvo in the ongoing migrant saga that has bedeviled local and state officials struggling to navigate the crisis that they have said needs a more robust federal response. “The reality is we’ve managed thus far without substantive support from Washington,” Hochul said in an address from Albany Thursday.
In a letter to the White House, Hochul urged Biden to take executive action to expedite work authorizations for asylum seekers, provide more financial aid to the city and the state and make more federal land available to house migrants, among other asks.
In what may have been her most direct call for assistance, Hochul said she and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have been sounding the alarm for expedited work authorization for migrants and additional federal funds to manage the crisis since July 2022.
“In our first meeting with the President, Mayor Adams and I have championed the idea of a federal designation that would allow the individuals already here in New York, the ability to work to support themselves and their families,” Hochul said. “The mayor and I said that and in countless meetings with Congress, the White House, Cabinet members and rallies with labor, press conferences and working with business. What we’ve said all along is just let them work and help us out financially.”
New York City has been the recipient of millions of dollars in federal funding to address the growing number of migrant arrivals. The administration also expects over $100 million of that support to be made available in the coming weeks.
The process for applying for asylum and a work permit is based on current immigration laws – and in recent years, has been made more difficult because of an immense backlog. Immigrant advocates argue that the Biden administration should expand the number of Venezuelans – who make up many of the migrant arrivals in New York – eligible for a form of humanitarian-relief known as Temporary Protected Status. That, they say, is perhaps the easiest form of action, without congressional action, the administration could take to satisfy the ask from New York. The Department of Homeland Security secretary has discretion to designate a country for TPS.
In a statement to CNN, a White House spokesperson said: “Without Congressional action, this Administration has been working to build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system and has worked to identify ways to improve efficiencies and maximize the resources the federal government can provide to communities across the country to support the flow of migrants.”
“We will continue to partner with communities across the country to ensure they can receive the support they need. Only Congress can provide additional funding for these efforts, which this Administration has already requested, and only Congress can fix the broken immigration system,” the spokesperson added.
Tom Perez, the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, recently spent time in New York to try to smooth over tensions over the migrant crisis and coordinate with state and city partners, according to multiple sources. And DHS dispatched an assessment team to work with state and local officials, according to an administration official.
The situation has also caused a divide between Hochul and the Adams’ administrations, with the mayor having previously asked for asylum seekers to be sent to other municipalities throughout the state, not just stay in New York City.
“Although we’re disappointed that the state today appears to minimize the role that they can – and must – play in responding to this crisis, the state must fulfil its duty to more than 8 million of the state’s residents who call New York City home,” Adams said in a press release Thursday afternoon.
“Whatever differences we all may have about how to handle this crisis; we believe what is crystal clear is that whatever obligations apply under state law to the City of New York apply with equal force to every county across New York state. Leaving New York City alone to manage this crisis – and abdicating the state’s responsibility to coordinate a statewide response – is unfair to New York City residents who also didn’t ask to be left almost entirely on their own in the middle of a national crisis.”
Hochul, meanwhile, has been steadfast in saying she would not use her executive powers to force other counties to take in asylum seekers, citing the city’s right-to-shelter law, which has been the backdrop of an ongoing legal back-and-forth between the city and the state.
“This is an agreement that does not apply to the state’s other 57 counties, which is one of the reasons we cannot and will not force other parts of our state to shelter migrants,” Hochul said. “Nor are we going to be asking migrants to move to other parts of the state against their will.”
She said that the state is working with the Department of Labor to connect migrants with jobs once the federal government approves their work authorizations. There have been 2600 families that have applied for asylum over the past 7 weeks, according to New York State Homeland Security Commissioner Jackie Bray. In a survey from this past May, 10% of people being sheltered have previously applied for asylum, Bray said.
Hochul said the plan, which hinges on asylum seekers being allowed to work, would help the migrant crisis, as well as businesses, which have struggled to find people to work.
“This is a national and a federal issue, but New York has shouldered this burden for far too long,” Hochul said.
A hydraulic fluid leak may have sparked the fire which then led to a large construction crane crashing down onto a Manhattan street Wednesday, CBS New York has learned from a high-ranking city official. Twelve people suffered minor injuries in the collapse. Lilia Luciano has more.
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