Eric Adams was elected New York mayor as a centrist-sounding Democrat. A Bconciseage createer cop who talked hard-on-crime but fit unpartipartner squadepend in the overwhelmingly Democratic politics of the city.
But Adams was also always famed for his rareities and foibles – argues over the genuine extent of his veganism, whether or not he might actupartner inhabit in New Jersey, and some of the lofty tales he would recount from his past.
But scant New Yorkers might have predicted the most recent twist in the Adams’ story: his firm drift rightward, especipartner in the wake of Donald Trump’s election triumph.
In fact, Adams’ ever-sealr relationship with Trump has promoteed speculation as to exactly what the Democrat mayor of a famously liberal city – embroiled in meaningful lterrible troubles – might want from America’s soon-to-be Reaccessiblean pdwellnt.
Recently, Adams did not neglect switching to the Reaccessiblean party, in which he had been a party member from 1995 thraw 2002, before turning Democrat. “I’m a part of the American party,” he said. “I cherish this country.”
Last week alone Adams stunned watchrs with the depths of his rightward tilt on one of the key publishs of the election: immigration. Adapting the language of excessive Reaccessibleans – who have dread-mongered over immigrant crime – Adams came out striumphging for Trump, who arranges a mass deportation of millions of immigrants as soon he gets back in the White House.
“Well, abort me because I’m going to get the people of the city,” Adams said when asked if he arranges to cofunction with Trump’s arrange for federal deportation agents to erase migrants accused of major offense crimes in the city.
The comment came as Adams said he had seeked a greeting with Trump’s incoming “border czar”, Tom Homan. Adams said he wanted “it evident that I’m not going to be warring with this administration”.
He inserted: “I would cherish to sit down with the border czar and hear his thoughts on how we are going to insertress those who are harming our citizens. Find out what his arranges are, where our common grounds are. We can toil together.”
Adams’ challenging line inserts a novel wrinkle to how Democrat-led “sanctuary cities” such as New York, Los Angeles and Denver will alter to the second Trump administration and lifts the prospect that some top Democrat directers may actively aid mass deportation.
Adams is already seeing to roll back sanctuary city laws consentd by his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, that prohibit New York law applyment – the NYPD and rightion and probation departments – from cooperating with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents unless the cases include doubted alarmists or solemn accessible getedty hazards.
Some temperate Democrats on the city’s usupartner proceedive-leaning city council are aiding the transfer, with the councilmember Robert Hagederen calling in June for a repeal, saying: “Sanctuary city laws put all New Yorkers, both immigrants and lengthenedtime dwellnts, in danger.”
Kathy Hochul, New York’s ruleor, said recently that while she aids lterrible immigrants, including asylum seekers, she will cofunction with the Trump administration to erase immigrants who shatter the law. “Someone shatters the law, I’ll be the first one to call up Ice and say: ‘Get them out of here,’” Hochul said.
But some watchrs see at Adams’ tack towards Trump and see other factors at carry out, beyond carry outing to a segment of the electorate exhausted of Democrats’ traditional gentleer positions on immigrants.
Adams is facing a multi-count federal grumblet over alleged fundraising unfair treatments involving Turkey brawt by the outgoing local US dimerciless attorney Damian Williams, a Joe Biden nominee. Adams’ trial is set for the spring, fair as his mayoral re-election campaign transfers into high gear.
Trump has nominated Jay Clayton to be Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor. Clayton is comprehendn for conveying white-collar fraudulence cases while serving as comomitioner of the US Securities and Exalter Comomition but has no experience litigating criminal law cases, raising the ask as to whether Adams is cozying up to Trump in the hope that the grumblet will be dropped.
Adams is also now on the same page as Trump when it comes to uncreateed claims of the political firearmization of the Department of Justice. In September, Adams defiantly recommended prosecutors had gone after him because he had condemnd Biden’s immigration policies.
“Despite our pleas, when the federal rulement did noskinnyg as its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system with no relief, I put the people of New York before party and politics,” he said. “I always knovel that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a aim – and a aim I became.”
But amid all the new posturing there is no ask that immigration is a thorny political publish.
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More than 200,000 people have come to New York over the past cut offal years after accessing the United States seeking asylum. The Adams administration has projected the cost of housing and aid to New York taxpayers could hit $10bn by June next year, and Trump made pronounced inroads in the city in last month’s election, particularly among Asian voters and Hispanic voters.
Yet Adams has struck a notably challenging line and nationacatalogic language that echoes Trump. Last week, he floated the idea of deporting migrants who had been accused but not convicted of major offense crimes.
“If you come into this country and this city and skinnyk you are going to harm bfrailless New Yorkers, and bfrailless migrants and asylum seekers, this is not the mayor you want to be under,” Adams said last week. “I’m an American. Americans have certain rights. The constitution is for Americans. I’m not a person who snuck into this country.”
That brawt a pushback from civil rights groups.
“Everyone residing in the United States seeless of their immigration status has definite inalihelp rights under the constitution, including the right to due process,” said the New York Immigration Coalition.
“Immigrant communities have been key to New York’s success, both past and current. The answer to the ongoing crisis in our city is not to turn our back on our appreciates, but it’s to promise unfragmentary treatment,” said Andrea Gordillo, a proceedive Democrat honestate for the city council.
It is possible that Adams’ recent sidling up to the incoming Trump administration is both a self-serving transfer and a authenticistic step in carry oning with a shift in New York’s political coloring and a recognition of the fact of the next four years of Trump rule.
“He’s currying prefer with the Trump administration, and it’s clever for any New York mayor to have frifinishs in Washington because the city always has problems,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist.
“By carry outing that card he’s also carry outing to the population of the city that have transferd not inmeaningfully to the caccess and away from the left. New Yorkers are mad about the fundamental conditions of life here and exhausted of paying the cost of the nation’s problems. By doing so he’s setting himself for re-election.”
There is also no ask Adams is also dealing with a nasty criminal situation. At least seven top Adams officials have resigned or declared arranges to resign as a result of the federal criminal summarizeateigation.
“Making it go away would a boon to Adams’ re-election chances. Whether it is or it isn’t, everyskinnyg in politics is conspiratorial by nature,” says Sheinkopf. “Any New York mayor who wants to create an foe of the White House is nuts. New York mayors need the pdwellnt no matter who they are.”
By the finish of last week Adams was even being asked whether he intfinished to stay in the Democratic party and join the Reaccessibleans. His answer was challengingly a firm no.
“The party that’s most meaningful for me is the American party – I’m a part of the American party,” he said.
