EL PASO, TX — While inspecting the United States-Mexico border today, New York City mayor Eric Adams explained that “there is no room” in his city for the hordes of migrants who have shown up here in recent weeks. Thousands have already been bused north to New York City in an act of desperation and political theater by Texas officials.
Texas governor Greg Abbott has vowed to keep sending these unwelcome asylum seekers north, as have Republican governors in other border states. Adams, a Democrat, sounded atypically sympathetic to Texas’ plight, asserting that “now is the time for the national government to do its job” about solving this crisis. For his part, Abbott has vowed to continue these human deliveries until a solution is found.
Adams’ seemingly blanket assertion that his entire city has “no room” for immigrants has sent shock waves through the vast and famously cynical population of America’s most populous city. New York is not only America’s largest city, it is the nation’s most diverse. Virtually every race, creed, nationality and cultural affiliation imaginable can be found in varying degrees of abundance there. Self-aware that almost every resident in the city is an “immigrant” to some extent, millions of New Yorkers were suddenly left scrambling for accommodations in suburban locales once it became clear that the mayor considered them personae non gratae if they remained.
The sheer logistical feat of quickly deporting and relocating 8 million residents wasn’t lost on those likely to profit most from this sudden exodus. Rents in previously undesirable areas like Newark, NJ and Hempstead, Long Island have suddenly quadrupled on the news. Joseph “The Tuna” Bongiovanni of Uptown Cartage, Storage & Express Burials in Washington Heights indicated to the Post that his phones “were buzzing like a bookie’s pager on Super Bowl Sunday” with customers wanting to reserve moving vans. “I need to get all these folks moved ASAP, ‘cuz then I guess I gotta move me, too. I own a place upstate. No worries.”
Uber driver and would-be actor Rajeesh “Shecky” Watanabe-Rodriguez, who describes himself/herself/theyself as “multicultural, biracial and non-binary, but 100 percent American,” wondered whether job opportunities might improve for the few residents who somehow qualified to stay in the city. “I mean, with everyone leaving, I’m thinking I can get an understudy gig on Broadway without even making the audition. Shit, everything out there is a revival anyway, so I might even get the lead.”