The phalanx of the Democrats around Biden has a hole the size of Eric Adams

The Democratic Party is following a standard strategy as President Biden pursues re-election: Don’t criticize him publicly under any circumstances, or it will help Donald J. Trump or one of his acolytes take back the White House for Republicans.

The only Democrat who seems to have missed the memo is New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Mr. Adams has taken almost every opportunity in recent weeks to publicly blame Mr. Biden or his administration for the influx of migrants from border states into New York, many on buses sent by Republican governors.

His eagerness to point a finger at the White House has drawn the ire of Biden’s top aides, who note the global complexity of the issue. At the same time, the mayor is using his platform to raise concerns that many Democrats share but won’t voice publicly because they don’t want to hurt the president.

The recent schism comes as Republicans put Mr Biden’s immigration policies at the center of their efforts to oust him in 2024. After many Democratic candidates successfully used abortion rights against their Republican opponents last year, Mr Biden’s burgeoning campaign would prefer his allies to stay informed – something Mr Adams has shown little willingness to do, despite telling himself ever “the Biden of Brooklyn.”

Officials in New York and Washington maintain that the ideologically aligned president and mayor have no personal animosity toward each other. But as Mr. Adams has struggled to manage the waves of migrants being sent to New York, he has been more vocal than other mayors in the same situation — and more willing to blame Mr. Biden.

Mr Adams said on Wednesday it was “mind-boggling” that officials in Washington “don’t understand what this is doing to New York City”. He expressed similar sentiments last month, saying, “The president and the White House have let New York City down on this issue.”

Mr Adams and his allies say the White House has ignored many of their pleas, including their request for the federal government to give more asylum seekers access to work permits and develop a plan to distribute migrants more widely across the country.

“We’ve reached out to the White House a number of times and clearly stated what we need,” Adams said Wednesday. “Making people work, which I think is one of the most important things we can do. Let people work. And do a decompression strategy at the border. We have 108,000 cities and towns and villages. Why don’t we spread this all over the country?”

Since becoming mayor 17 months ago on a platform of taming disorder on the city streets, Mr. Adams has repeatedly broken the ranks of the Democratic Party. Last year, his language on crime echoed attacks by Republicans in New York as they helped topple the House and issued a strong challenge to Governor Kathy Hochul.

Now some Democrats worry Mr Adams’ messages about migrants will once again undermine Mr Biden, putting the president at odds with a high-profile ally and the arguments of Republican governors such as Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron Florida’s DeSantis seem to be reinforcing that he is weak on border security.

“Abbott and DeSantis and whoever is getting what they want: they’re at each other’s throats,” said Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime ally of Adams who has tried to serve as a go-between between the mayor and the White House. “On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s a 12 for frustration, and sometimes frustration can come across as more hostile than you’d like.”

Mr Biden’s aides and allies in Washington — half a dozen of whom spoke about their private conversations on condition of anonymity — are clearly annoyed by the mayor. In their view, Mr. Adams is a grand opportunist, striving to win the headlines without regard for the wider political implications for the president and his re-election.

Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for the mayor, said in a statement that “Mayor Adams has and always will put the best interests of New Yorkers first, which is why we’ve been asking for support for a year.” He added, “We need federal and state support more than ever to manage this crisis quickly.”

Last year, some White House officials were annoyed when Mr. Adams issued a public letter to ask for more monkeypox vaccines and called the White House’s approach “bit by bit” after it had already privately told Mr. Adams that he would receive the vaccine shipments he had requested.

When Mr. Abbott began ferrying migrants to New York from Texas border towns, Mr. Adams and his team the White House for federal aid to house migrants, expedite their work permits and move some of them to cruise ships in the city’s port. The administration often responded that many of the mayor’s requests required congressional action—which was unlikely given the stalemate at the Capitol.

On multiple occasions, White House officials told the mayor’s staff they hoped to continue talking privately about the issues and emphasized the need to move forward as a partnership. Instead, Mr. Adams continued to publicly criticize the government.

“He should be looking at Republicans deliberately causing chaos for their political gain and refusing to take action to solve the problem,” said Pili Tobar, a former deputy communications director for the Biden administration who has dealt with immigration.

Mr Biden introduced legislation that would overhaul the immigration system, increase border security funding and provide citizenship to 11 million undocumented immigrants. But Republicans have been uniformly opposed to the proposals, and they’ve gotten nowhere.

The mayor has to make his own calculations. While New York City has long prided itself on being a haven for migrants, more than 67,000 people have traveled there in the past year. The city is also unique among major U.S. cities for having a legal obligation to house people with nowhere to live. Already facing record levels of homelessness, the city is now home to around 42,400 migrants. It has run out of space in its hideouts and has started exploring alternate locations.

New York has sent migrants north while continuing to pay for housing and services, temporarily housed migrants in public school gymnasiums and floated ideas such as setting up tents in Central Park. The Adams administration even asked an owner of the largely vacant Flatiron Building if there was room there. (He said no.)

Homeland Security officials in the Biden administration also privately expressed concern last year about how cities would handle the influx of migrants from Texas and Florida.

Last summer, those officials acknowledged that New York City and Washington were already struggling, even with additional volunteers, to process hundreds of migrants being bussed into their cities, according to internal emails reviewed by The New York Times.

The Department of Homeland Security was considering a plan where the federal government would coordinate with local officials to fly migrants into cities rather than release them along the border, and let Mr. Abbott continue to orchestrate the surprise drop-offs .

Supporters of such government-funded flights believed they would reduce overcrowding at the border and allow federal officials to complete the processing of migrants once they land. But some thought there weren’t enough federal funds to complete the plan.

The government instead moved forward with a “Domestic Cities Awareness Campaign,” in which the government would educate city leaders about migrant rights and immigration processing, but leave municipalities to handle migrant drop-offs. The Biden administration has made available $350 million in federal grants to local governments struggling with the arrival of migrants; New York received $30 million.

The Adams administration says organizational issues aside, the arrival of the migrants will blow a $4.3 billion hole in the city’s budget, which was already threatened by the downturn in the commercial real estate market.

Frank Carone, Mr Adams’ former chief of staff, who is expected to lead the mayor’s re-election campaign, said it was “fully appropriate that colleagues disagreed on how to handle immigration.”

“I would contrast that with what happens in an oligarch state, like in Russia, China or North Korea, where I doubt you will see the view of Putin’s allies,” said Mr. Caroline. “The president and his team realize they are in a humanitarian crisis. And he does what he can. Unfortunately, it falls squarely on the shoulders of New York City.”

What makes Mr. Adams’ approach so politically remarkable — and appealing to Republicans — is that while he is not the only Democrat to claim that Mr. Biden is not handling immigration well, he is the rare one to do so repeatedly in front of television. cameras.

Mr. Adams’ repeated criticism of the White House has raised his national profile—no small concern for a man whose three predecessors were running for president. His potshots regularly appear on Fox News and other conservative news outlets, with a clear message: Even the mayor of liberal New York City has had it with Mr. Biden.

The mayor’s candor has earned him the enmity of White House officials. Last week, he was conspicuously absent from the Biden campaign’s list of surrogates, including Cincinnati mayors; Richmond, Virginia; and Madison, Wis.

How much political advantage Mr. Adams can gain by attacking Mr. Biden is another question.

Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from the Bronx, said the mayor’s “sentiment is understandable and his complaint against the federal government seems legitimate to me.”

He added: “Do I wish he was more careful in his choice of words? Certainly.”