An outside observer to New York City politics could reasonably assume that the mayor, Democrat Eric Adams, is aligned with the Right. Adams, who took office at the beginning of last year, has consistently trumpeted the right-wing trio of law and order, budget austerity, and pro-business, anti-worker policies. The most recent Adams innovation is his rhetoric around the so-called migrant crisis. Adams has gone so far as to say that the influx of migrants will “destroy” New York City (in a demand for further state and federal assistance).

Adams does not use explicitly xenophobic language questioning the right of migrants and asylum seekers to be in New York. In fact, he maintains a veneer of support for the asylum seekers, recently denouncing nativist activists arrested in Staten Island for trying to block a bus of migrants. Yet his ideological commitment to reducing public services has forced him into a dangerous game of inflaming nativist and anti-immigrant sentiments in the city and beyond. Migrants in New York have endured deplorable conditions, including temporarily sleeping on city streets this past August and overcrowding into “temporary” respite housing centers with insufficient bathrooms and lack of available food. Twenty thousand new students have entered the public school system this fall, a system for which Adams has repeatedly slashed funding.

This crisis is not only a huge problem for the Democratic party leadership — fragile going into the upcoming presidential election — but also demonstrates the failures of neoliberal Democrats and the federal system in responding to emergencies and meeting people’s basic needs.