People are up in arms over the plan New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced that will slash the overtime pay of uninformed agencies so that the city can cover costs associated with dealing with the recent increase in migrants.
Following Adams’ announcement, people immediately came forward to criticize the plan, saying it could easily exacerbate the problem of increased crime in the city as well as shortages its police department is facing.
Lee Zeldin, a former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives who lost a bid for New York governor last year, was one of the more prominent critics of the move. Appearing on the “Fox & Friends” program on Tuesday, he said:
“This is death by a thousand cuts for NYPD and really for the city as well. If NYPD and law and order go, so goes New York City.
“People are going to just throw their hands up. They made it this far. That’s amazing. But, this is going to be the last straw for many.”
The mayor’s office recently confirmed that it informed the city’s sanitation, corrections, fire and police departments that they have to submit plans for reductions in overtime pay. The departments are also being forced to track the progress they’re making on a monthly basis.
Many people have expressed a lot of concerns not just about the mayor’s plan but about the overall migrant crisis that New York City is experiencing. Dr. Darrin Porcher, a former lieutenant with the NYPD, for instance, said:
“The migrant crisis has reached epic proportions, and the city of New York is unable to shoulder the financial responsibility.”
Police unions also warned that the changes that Adams is proposing could make crime even worse than it already is by reducing how many officers go out on patrol.
Morale is already low among police officers, Zeldin said, thanks to policies such as cashless bail and taxes on qualified immunity, as well as district attorneys who are taking a more progressive approach.
For his part, Porcher suggested that New York City should rescind its status as a sanctuary city so that migrants are no longer given “passageway” to the city. As he explained:
“The sanctuary city status came of the former Mayor Bill de Blasio’ catastrophic failure as the mayor of the city of New York. It’s now carried into the tenure of Eric Adams.
“I have yet to hear Eric Adams speak to receding the sanctuary city status that we have, which affords migrants a passageway into the city of New York. The time is now to remove that sanctuary city status because we need the money for so many other things.”
Adams has said that the huge influx of migrants into New York City could be the source of a future “financial tsunami.” He warned over the weekend that just about every service in the city could eventually have to grapple with its effects.
He said:
“From child service to our seniors to housing, everything will be impacted.”
