Mayor Adams joins the police raid and tries to expose a criminal group of migrants

A day after Mayor Eric Adams reiterated his message that the migrant crisis would destroy New York City, he seemed determined to prove his point.

Mr. Adams, a former police captain, on Monday donned a bulletproof vest with a Fendi scarf underneath and supervised an early morning police raid in the Bronx, tied to a large robbery ring where many of the participants were believed to be. recent migrants.

Police officials called this the “largest robbery pattern the city has seen,” with a group of thieves on mopeds or scooters taking cellphones and wallets in at least 62 incidents, most involving female victims.

Police said the thieves were “migrants who recently arrived in the United States” and who are “primarily living in the migrant shelter system.”

Mr Adams' participation, promoted by the police's social media account, reinforced the idea that the wave of migrants was wreaking havoc in the city. Late last month, a police officer and a lieutenant suffered minor injuries after being attacked in Times Square by a group of men who, according to a law enforcement official, were recent migrants living in city-provided shelters.

The mayor's police chief, Edward A. Caban, followed that theme Monday, warning at a news conference that “a wave of immigrant crime has swept our city.”

Mr. Adams, a Democrat who enters his third year as president with a dismal approval rating, has repeatedly waded into the national debate over the migrant crisis and appeared Monday to welcome an opportunity to show he was holding migrants who commit crimes accountable.

“Generals lead from the front,” Mr. Adams said at a news conference.

Critics, including immigration advocates, called the raid a political stunt and said it was a disturbing escalation of Mr. Adams' xenophobic rhetoric toward migrants over the past year.

“His latest stunt with the NYPD sends the wrong message to New Yorkers about our latest arrivals and stokes fear of police among asylum seekers,” said Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition.

The raid was carried out at the home of Victor Parra, 30, a Venezuelan accused of coordinating the robberies. Police said they believe Mr. Parra entered the country last year and recruited recent migrants still living in shelters.

Officers discovered 22 stolen phones in the home, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at the news conference. Mr. Parra was not at home and a warrant has been issued for his arrest.

In text messages on the messaging platform WhatsApp, Mr. Parra told his team what type of phones he was looking for, then texted the group: “I have money, I'm available, go get them,” Chief Kenny said. Mr. Parra paid between $300 and $600 for each stolen phone and gave it to an accomplice who hacked into the phone owners' bank accounts, Kenny said.

The migrant crisis has presented Mr Adams with a huge challenge. The mayor has blamed cuts to libraries and other key city services on the high cost of caring for migrants and said last September that the migrant crisis would destroy the city.

Still, Mr. Adams sought to reassure New Yorkers that the vast majority of migrants are law-abiding.

“A small number of people break the law and have a huge impact on our public safety, which is why we focused on them,” Mr Adams said.

It is not known how many crimes have been committed by recent migrants, but it does not appear that these have contributed to a serious increase in crime. The number of crimes will remain lower in 2024 than last year, and the number of minor and major thefts will remain basically unchanged, according to police records.

Still, Mr. Adams was asked in a nationally televised interview with CBS on Sunday whether he stood by his comments that the migrant crisis would destroy New York City. “Without a doubt,” he said, continuing his plea for more federal aid for cities.

The message seemed to resonate with a group of Republican elected officials gathered in Times Square to draw attention to the recent attack that police say was carried out by migrants. The officials called on the city to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport those responsible.

When Mr. Adams was asked whether he should dial back his rhetoric on migrants because it could hurt President Biden, he said it was his job to fight on behalf of New Yorkers.

“This is not anti-Biden,” he said. “There are failures on all sides of the aisle.”

Basil Smikle, director of the Public Policy Program at Hunter College, said he could not recall either of Mr. Adams's recent predecessors, Bill de Blasio or Michael R. Bloomberg, conducting a similar police raid. He believed Mr. Adams was likely trying to shore up his tough-guy crime-fighting image after a political defeat last week in a showdown with the city council over two criminal justice bills.

“I think the timing here is very important – he is trying to show solidarity with the police in the wake of overriding his veto,” Mr Smikle said.