“People aren’t coming to El Paso, they’re coming to America, and that’s something that’s really important,” Mayor Oscar Lesser said in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” Many of the Venezuelan asylum seekers, however, do not have “sponsors” in the U.S., leaving them with no obvious destinations, Leeser noted. “A sponsor is someone where they are a family member or a friend, where they have arranged and have a means of transport to get to their destination,” he said. “We have about 50 percent of people today who don’t have a sponsor, they don’t have money. So we help and work to get them where they want.” Following Leeser on “This Week,” Adams echoed his Democratic counterpart’s point about “sponsors” — but did not directly address The Post’s report that his administration had agreed to take in up to 200 immigrants a day from El Paso. “As the mayor of El Paso has stated, these immigrants and asylum seekers are not coming to any particular city. They’re coming to America,” Adams said Sunday. El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser defended his move to send busloads of immigrants to New York with permission from Mayor Eric Adams.AP Photo/Astrid Galvan, fileLeeser said his goal is to help immigrants “get to their destination.” Robert Miller News of the deal came Friday as Adams continued to denounce Republican governors for a similar relocation program. The mayor has also repeatedly blamed the continued influx of new arrivals for crumbling the city’s shelter system. Hizoner said Sunday he was focused on “coordinating” with local governments and the Biden administration to address what he called “an American crisis … man-made by some of our southern states” — echoing his longtime criticism for GOP leaders, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSandis. “As you’ve seen the mayor of El Paso has shown that when you have sponsors, it’s an easier transition,” Adams said. “If we would have coordinated properly with the governors in these southern states and said, let’s find where the sponsors are, we have large Venezuelan communities in America.” Mayor Eric Adams called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s busloads of immigrants a “political stunt.” Robert Miller Immigrants from El Paso get off a bus at the Port Authority in Manhattan on September 6, 2022. Robert Miller He added: “There was no coordination with Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis just wanted to use it [as a] political stunt instead of understanding that these are people, these are families, these are people.” El Paso began sending immigrants to the Big Apple on August 23. Leeser said at Monday’s El Paso City Council meeting that he was “grateful” to Adams for welcoming immigrants to New York.
Immigration crisis moves north: See what’s happening across the country as border states bus migrants into US
Adams spokesman Fabien Levy denied Friday that the city had agreed to accept the migrants to be sent from El Paso. But City Hall also released a statement from Leeser that said: “We greatly appreciate the assistance and cooperation of Mayor Adams, his team and the people of New York as we deal with this evolving and changing situation. “ As of Wednesday, the El Paso Office of Emergency Management had paid for 33 charter buses to travel here, a spokesman for the Texas city said. Adams said six more buses arrived Sunday, but did not say from where.
