New York City Mayor Eric Adams exaggerated cost of migrant crisis, report says 

Mayor Eric Adams has exaggerated New York City’s public costs to house, feed and otherwise care for foreign migrants in the most recent phase of the crisis — wrongly projecting higher spending even as the number of arrivals keeps declining and the city has curbed services — according to a report issued Wednesday by the Independent Budget Office.

Spending in 2024 wound up being $3.8 billion — $1 billion lower than budgeted, $4.8 billion — "but the total forecasted budget for new arrivals has either increased or remained the same," the report said.

Since mid-2022, more than 240,000 of the migrants, most from Latin America, have surged into the city, costing the city billions of dollars, with an unknown number having illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Adams, who at first welcomed the migrants, later said the crisis "will destroy New York City," and he's cited the related spending in making, and restoring, cuts to the municipal budget for unrelated city services.

Much of the costs have been due to the city’s unique-in-the-nation legal mandate to provide room and board to anyone needy who asks. Last year, the city set time limits for how long certain categories of migrants are allowed to be given shelter services.

In a statement reacting to the report, Adams spokeswoman Amaris Cockfield said that forecasts would be revised in forthcoming budget projections.

"The Adams administration has cared for nearly 240,000 asylum-seekers since the spring of 2022. While cost forecasting during a rapidly evolving, unprecedented humanitarian crisis is incredibly difficult," Cockfield said.

She said that past projections by the office have been proved wrong. 

"Underestimating unpredictable costs — as some monitors did — would have severely strained our city's budget, further impacting New Yorkers in a negative manner," she said.

According to the latest office report, the overestimation has continued "in every budget" issued since mid-2023 by the administration. For example, $4.4 billion was estimated for this fiscal year, more than the city had spent the year before, even as the pace of arrivals is declining as has spending and the number of those living in city-provided shelters, which also includes hotels, tent housing and office buildings, according to office analyst Claire Salant.

The population began to decline in January 2024, she said, and then began to fall precipitously when President Joe Biden imposed sharp restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border beginning in the middle of last year. Biden's order sent unlawful crossings down to levels unseen since mid-2020.

Despite those trends, the office found, the Adams administration has not updated its budget projections.

It's not the first time that the mayor's office has been accused of inflating migrant costs. The city's elected public advocate, Jumaane Williams, has repeatedly criticized the mayor over such claims. Last month, Williams said: "The mayor has misled the city for years about the cost of aiding asylum-seekers."

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.