NEW YORK, CMC – Immigration advocates here have strongly condemned as “racist” and “divisive” New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s comment that Caribbean and other asylum seekers are “excellent swimmers” and should become lifeguards in the city.
“New Yorkers are looking to Mayor Eric Adams to unite our city, not foment more division,” Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella policy and advocacy organization that represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) on Wednesday.
“His comments on asylum seekers being ‘excellent swimmers’ implies that, because some immigrants had to swim or wade across the water on their dangerous journeys to seek safety in the United States, they would make good lifeguards,” Awawdeh added. “This comment is racist, and the mayor should not be making light of the complex and often life-threatening journeys people are forced to make to escape violence and persecution.
“It’s demeaning and dehumanizing,” Awawdeh continued. “The mayor has made clear how much he hates the ‘word police,’ but he wouldn’t need to worry about that if he would stop making nonsensical or racist statements on a range of topics, including 9/11 and asylum seekers.
“Mayor Adams should start reigning in some of the divisive and inappropriate language he uses and apologize to New Yorkers for this completely unwarranted and out-of-line comment,” he added.
Many of the migrants arriving in New York and other major US cities from the southern borders of the US, seeking refugee and asylum statuses, are nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Honduras.
On Tuesday, Adams, an African-American, commented during his weekly press briefing after a reporter asked him about the city’s lifeguard shortage.
The mayor asked: “How do we have many people in our city and country who are excellent swimmers, and at the same time, we need lifeguards?”
His comment drew sharp criticism from immigration advocates and legislators, prompting the mayor to seek damage control on Wednesday.
He said his comment was based on several discussions he has had with Caribbean and other migrants, nearly 200,000 of whom have flooded New York City in the last two years, creating what Adams and other elected officials have described as a “migrant crisis.”
“We have these capable people who know how to swim — from West Africa, Ecuador, South and Central America, Mexico — and we have a shortage of lifeguards,” he said at City Hall. “If we start planning now, we could be prepared next year.”
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) released a report detailing asylum seeker cost projections for Fiscal Years 25 and 26, which starkly contrast with the cost projections released by the Adams administration.
The IBO’s highest-cost estimate on spending through Fiscal Year 26 is US$1.7 billion, less than the numbers put out by City Hall.
The independent agency also estimates up to US$2 billion in negative fiscal consequences due to the city’s “irresponsible shelter eviction policies,” according to Awawdeh.
“Today’s report from the Independent Budget Office confirms what we’ve known for months: the Adams administration is flat out wrong on asylum seeker spending,” he said. The mayor keeps using fuzzy math to justify broad cuts to New York City’s social safety net, all while pointing at recent arrivals.
“The truth is that the mayor is inflating cost projections and scapegoating asylum seekers to distract from his management failures,” Awawdeh charged. “There is more than enough funding to restore critical cuts to our social infrastructure – from libraries to childcare – while bolstering investments that will ensure all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status, are set up to succeed.”
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