New York City Mayor Eric Adams suggested that the city could solve a shortage in available lifeguards by hiring migrants because they're "excellent swimmers" during a statement made at City Hall on Tuesday.
Adams' suggestion came as a tangent, while responding to a question about lifeguards at city pools and beaches in advance of Memorial Day weekend. The mayor implied that the city could kill two birds with one stone, by providing jobs for migrants and filling staffing vacancies.
"How do we have a large body of people that are in our city, our country, that are excellent swimmers and at the same time we need lifeguards - and the only obstacle is that we won't give them the right to work to become a lifeguard," he said.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams on immigrants filling up jobs: "How do we have a large body of people in our city that are excellent swimmers and at the same time we need lifeguards?" pic.twitter.com/U3Vf4V6Lmt
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) May 14, 2024
Adams was seemingly referencing the individuals who cross the United States' southern border though the Rio Grande before settling in other parts of the country. The migrant crisis has become a signature issue of Adams' administration - with the city struggling to provide housing, schools and other necessities to asylum seekers, many of whom are waiting to receive work permits from the federal government.
"If we had a plan that said, 'If there was a shortage of food service workers and those who fit that criteria, we're going to expedite you,' if you have experience that you are a nurse and we have nursing shortage, we would expedite you," he continued during his impromptu comments on asylum seekers.
"It's the same for lifeguards. We have all these eligible people waiting to work, with the skills we need to do the jobs, but we are unable to allow them to work because bureaucracy is in the way."
Adams has previously drawn the ire of migrant advocacy groups - many of whom claim the mayor uses inflammatory language while referring to asylum seekers.
Last September, the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless criticized Adams for saying that the migrant crisis could "destroy" New York City. The non-profit said the Democratic politician sounded like "fringe politicians on the far-right of the political spectrum" and that his remarks "villainize people who fled unimaginable situations in their home countries."
