As mayor of New York City and a former police officer for 22 years, keeping New Yorkers safe is my top priority and it has been the north star of our administration. When I fulfilled this role, it was my job to help restore our city from the negative effects of Covid – especially to bring down crime. As a result, overall crime in New York City had fallen last year and we have now had three consecutive months with double digits for major crimes.
Tomorrow I will testify to the Congress of the United States about how under the leadership of our administration, New York City can continue to reduce crime, even as a ‘shrine of the trap’, and how mayors of the big city can add back to rule.
It starts with maintaining firm in rejecting the misconception that a classification of the ‘sanctuary’ means that our city will someday be a safe haven for violent criminals.
We must continue to ensure that those who commit violent crimes, regardless of old residents or newcomers, are held responsible and that the public is kept safe. As a ‘sanctuary’, New York City also does not give the authority to break the federal immigration laws. On the contrary, New York City will always meet city, state and federal laws, such as now.
Secondly, we must acknowledge that authorities have played an important role in our society in New York. Immigrants New Yorkers, including those who have no papers, pay billions of dollars in taxes and contributes more billions to giving a baking force to our economy. Immigrants also play a crucial role in the functioning of the city; This was completely shown during the COVID-19 Pandemie.
The various immigrant residents of our city worked to keep the city moving, while many other New Yorkers could protect from a distance and work remotely. Hospitals, the food industry and many other companies were able to function due to the use of our immigrant population.
Finally, we must understand how, despite a patchwork of laws on federal, state and city level-we all still have to work together to resolve what a problem has been in the making for decades. I consistently said: “I will collaborate with the federal government, not a war with them.”
That is because as a mayor I have no control over who comes in or stays in our country, but I do have to manage the population in our city. In order to perform this function without negative consequences in the long term, I have to create an atmosphere that every authority -true resident, documented or not, has access to vital services to be transferred to federal authorities without fear.
I cannot have a city where parents are afraid of sending their children to school or where children sleep on the street – create potential for exploitation of children and sex trade. If a person without paper refuses to seek medical care until they have a medical emergency, the health care system of our city will be tense. And if an individual without a paper witnesses a crime but is afraid to call 911 for fear of being transferred to the federal authorities, criminals will walk around freely.
As a former police officer, I have seen the damage firsthand that can be caused when someone is too scared to seek the police. Early in my career I responded to a man who called for help. We caught the suspect, but when it came to completing the police report, the person – a man without papers from China – said that he did not want to submit a report and put a target on his back with federal immigration authorities.
Almost four decades later, our country has still not passed on a comprehensive reform of immigration and, as a result, New York City has been affected in the last three years with the greatest humanitarian crisis in the history of our city.
Since the spring of 2022, our city has seen more than 232,000 migrants coming in our city and ask for shelter – that is a population larger than Rochester, NY, Columbus, Ohio and Tallahassee, Fl.
But thanks to our competent management and smart policy that has implemented limitations to how long asylum seekers can stay in our care, and an extensive border policy for which we have strongly advocated, we have succeeded in helping more than 188,000 migrants to take the next steps in their travels.
And between June 2024 and June 2025 we closed 53 emergency migrant shelters thanks to our exit policy, so that we can turn the page on this crisis, which we have largely performed alone and taxpayers can save millions of dollars.
And consider this: when the unprecedented international migrant crisis arrived at the New York City front door step, the federal law did not allow me to stop buses in New York City and the State Act to provide everything in our city with housing and meals and children. We have met these legal requirements and have still managed the humanitarian crisis with care and compassion, while at the same time reducing crime, repairing our economy and preventing every child from being forced to sleep on the street.
But we, nor a city throughout the country, can do it alone. Extensive reform of immigration is far too late and something that I and others have called for. Although the solution is not under my control, I am dedicated to working with federal officials-onachts who president to go after violent gangs and those who harm residents of our city, and I beg everyone, whether I am a mayor of the big cities or another chosen officer, to follow us with us.
Adams is the mayor of New York City.
