"Face the Nation," May 21, 2023

Interview

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Good morning to you as well.

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I don't think that's a discrepancy. We've spent over a billion dollars. We're projected to spend close to $4.3 billion, if not more.

This estimate was based on a number of migrants coming to the city, and those numbers have clearly increased. We are getting -- we've received several days last week alone over 900 migrants on days, a week -- over two weeks ago, approximately 4,200 in one week.

When you look at the price tag, $30 million comes nowhere near what the city is paying for a national problem.

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Well, we've been extremely transparent what the needs are.

When a city that just cycled out of the financial crisis of COVID is now hit with an additional over a billion dollars in our budget, and potentially 4-point -- over $4 billion in the out years, that is not the price tag that is attached to what it cost to handle this national problem.

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Yes. She has been a real partner, as well as Senator Schumer, Congressman Jeffries and the New York delegation.

They have been extremely helpful in trying to, number one, get the dollars coming out of Washington, D.C., but also the governor here, in coordinating our efforts. We believe the entire state should participate in a decompression strategy, and it's unfortunate that there have been some lawmakers and counties that are not carrying on their role of ensuring that this is a decompression strategy throughout the state.

And, sometimes, we have witnessed in some municipalities where they lied and stated that veterans were being forced out of hotels, which was untrue and found out to be fabricated. So, these types of tactics are just anti- American and anti-New York City.

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Yes, it would.

We have 108,000 cities, villages, towns. If everyone takes a small portion of that, and if it's coordinated at the border to ensure that those who are coming here to this country in a lawful manner is actually moved throughout the entire country, it is not a burden on one city.

And the numbers need to be clear. We received over 70,000 migrant asylum seekers in our city; 42,000 are still in our care.

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If this is properly handled at the border level, this issue can be resolved, while we finally get Congress, particularly the Republican Party, to deal with a comprehensive immigration policy.

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When you do an examination, just as I have talked about public safety issues and how we're to get guns that were clearly saturating our cities, so too, in October and prior to that, I have talked about how we must look at involuntary removal of those who are -- cannot take care of their basic needs and are a danger to themselves.

You know, it breaks my heart how Jordan lost his life, who happens to have the same name as my son. And our focus should be on how he died. And we need to look at how he lived and ensure that the other Jordans out there receive the care they deserve.

I spend many days in the subway system talking to those who are in that condition. And if we don't get help from the state government to ensure that we can use involuntary removals with those who are in danger to themselves and can't take care of basic needs, we may be facing a potential problem like this again. And that's what we need to do. We need to make sure that we go after those other Jordan Neelys that are there looking for care.

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