Curt Menefee: All right. Thanks, Mike. Well, we all know that persistent gun violence is an issue all across the country, and specifically, here in New York City. Today, it's the focus of a very special summit taking place between public safety leaders, middle and high school students, and nonprofit leaders.
Rosanna Scotto: Joining us right now with more, Mayor Eric Adams and Reem Khalifa, a volunteer with Students Demand Action. Nice to have you both here. Reem, while you get your light together, mayor, I want to ask you about teen violence. Is it on the rise in New York City?
Mayor Eric Adams: Well, actually, we witnessed a 20 percent decrease this quarter in shootings. Any violence is violence too much, but when you do an analysis of who are the victims in a violence act, you see far too many young people are participating in it. It's fortunate for us, particularly, on school grounds. We have had no shootings on our school grounds, although we've had cases where young people have brought weapons and guns into school.
When we did our forum with young people over the summer, we did several town halls, the number one and number two issue was dealing with safety in the school, and giving support for mental health issues in the school. That's what we focused on.
Scotto: Of course, mayor. Reem, when we went to school, school was a sanctuary. We never worried about violence. What do you hope comes out of this summit today?
Reem Khalifa: Yes, so I hope that we come together to advocate, to educate, and to inform the community about gun violence. Actually, as Mayor Adams said, New York City is relatively safe, in terms of gun violence. We have the second strongest gun laws in the country, and we have the fourth lowest rate of gun violence in this city. I hope to come together with all of these different foundations.
I'm a part of Students Demand Action. I'm the co-president of the New York City Chapter. There's going to be the Angellyh Yambo Foundation, which is very important in the Bronx. I just want to come together, and shine a light on, honor the victims that have passed away due to gun violence, and to create plans. How can we stop gun violence, not only in this city, not only in this state, but nationwide?
Menefee: We thank you for sharing your message with us. Future mayor, Reem Khalifa right here on Good Day New York . It's really cool to see young people interested in the political process and the policy process, and being active in it, so thank you for sharing that message with us, Reem. We appreciate you.
Khalifa: Yes.
Menefee: All right. Mayor, while we've got you here, I want to ask you a couple of things, because obviously, the Republicans are having a convention here in New York City, and Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has already made headlines by talking about whether or not he sent the migrants here before, or after he says you took a shot at him, and he wanted to get credit for it.
First of all, I know that, a little bit sarcastically, you invited him to stay in a migrant shelter, but one, have you actually had a conversation with him since this all began, and two, if so, if not, what would you say directly to the Governor of Texas?
Mayor Adams: Listen, he started sending migrants here, and we reached out and said, "Let's coordinate this issue." We both realize that this is a national problem, and it should not impact our cities, and his state. It's unfortunate instead of that collaboration, he chose to take out his anger on a national problem, both Congress' failure to have immigration reform, and the White House not putting a real plan to move this issue forward.
Instead of doing what other mayors, mayors from Chicago, Denver, and with the governor of Massachusetts and others are doing, he chose to aggravate the problem by sending busloads of people across the country to New York City. It just was unfair. I hope what he would do is, take me up and come visit some of the HERCCs and the migrant centers that we have here, to see what we have been doing, and at the cost of the residents of New York.
Menefee: You hit one of the nails on the head, this is really a federal issue, and the federal government's not taking care of it. You talked about cooperation between cities and state governments. You've been really open about criticizing the Biden administration for not dealing with this problem. Have you gotten anywhere with any progress there?
Mayor Adams: Well, as you know we received a little over a $100 million from the Biden's administration, all committed to, I should say. When you do an analysis, we spent over $4 billion. This could cost us anywhere in the area of a little over $10 billion. We were fortunate that we brought down the cost of the migrant asylum seeker by 30 percent by looking at ways that we can have a peg of what we close the cost of this.
We got a substantial number, over 60 percent out of our system, and they are now self-efficient, but we need more from Washington. This is not a New York City cost. It should not be attached to us, and it's not fair to any municipality. I would not move this problem, or displace it to another municipality, and unfortunately, that's what the governor did, but Washington, both in Congress and the White House, both have a role to make sure these cities are not going through this.
Scotto: Mayor, we just had President Biden in town. He was here raising money for his campaign. Did you invite President Biden to go visit a migrant shelter?
Mayor Adams: We had several conversations. I did not go into private conversations, but I made it clear publicly on what I believe the White House and Congress should do. I want to be extremely clear with Governor Abbott. Governor Abbott announced that he was intentionally sending migrants and asylum seekers to the city as a political ploy. He acknowledged that he was intentionally doing it. It was wrong. I would have picked up the phone, and called the mayors of these cities, and the governors and these other state, and shared with them. We should have come together, and went to Washington, lobbied Congress, and part of my 10 trips to speak with the White House. That is how governors and executives— That's how we solve these problems. We solve them together.
Scotto: Mayor, obviously, Sanctuary City, you have expressed your frustration with this being a Sanctuary City. The other day, ICE moved in on this home in The Bronx, where there were migrant squatters, repeat offenders, who've been in trouble with the law in our city and other cities. What happened there? Because it was shocking that ICE moved in, and made an arrest, when basically, a judge in our area released six out of the eight migrant squatters who were charged.
Mayor Adams: Really problematic, and it touches on many of the points that I've raised. Migrants and asylum seekers, which we really need to understand, are not connected to sanctuary cities at all. They are paroled into this country, and they have legal status here. Sanctuary cities, that's attached to individuals who are here illegally, and you can't turn them over to ICE based on the laws that we have in this city.
My concern with Sanctuary City is in one area. Those who are violent individuals who repeatedly commit crimes. I believe, after they serve their time, they should be turned over to ICE. We should not have people in our city they are harming New Yorkers, and we allow them to stay in our city. That is my concern with the current status of Sanctuary City, which is different from what Mayorkas put in place when it was first put in place.
When you look at these migrants and asylum seekers who were at this arrest, it goes back to my concern, why are we allowing repeated offenders to leave our criminal justice system? What are the judges thinking about? Anytime you have an individual who shot Jonathan, the officer who we lost, he was arrested over 20 times. This pattern has to stop. The police, they are doing their job. The other apparatus in the criminal justice system must do their job.
Scotto: Mayor, the police were not allowed to inform ICE, but somehow ICE figured out what was happening at that home in the Bronx. Do you have any idea what transpired in between?
Mayor Adams: No, I do not. We're not allowed to collaborate with ICE. There are many joint task force in our city. We collaborate with other law enforcement agencies, but the law does not allow us to collaborate with ICE, even if a person is a known felon or violent felon, or repeated felon. The laws— The law that was put in place in the previous administration would not allow us to do that collaboration. I don't think that's a good decision.
Menefee: I want to ask you one more thing that's in the news here. You talk about whether they're migrants or US citizens, Governor Hochul talked about trying to toughen the laws, especially for repeat offenders, and Assembly Speaker Heastie said he doesn't believe that penalties actually are a deterrent for crime. I'd like to hear your take on that.
Mayor Adams: Well, I think that penalties may not be a deterrent in some mindset. There's some people who are so violent in nature that, no matter what the penalties are in front of us, they will commit a crime. What penalties will do, they would take these dangerous people off our streets. That's what a penalty would do.
If you shoot someone, if you slash someone, or commit a violent act of robbery, or take the life of someone, you would take that person off our streets until they are rehabilitated. Right now, far too many dangerous—
Mayor Adams: Right now, far too many dangerous people believe they could do bad things to good people and there's no repercussion associated with it. If you can carry a gun, if you can have fentanyl in a household with a child and you can walk into a courtroom and then you're out the next day on your own recognizance, that's unacceptable. There [are] far too many cases where individuals are not coming back to court repeatedly as we profile in our crime briefing.
That is the problem. We have a recidivism problem in the city added to an extreme mental health issue. As I stated over and over again, the cases of these random acts of violence, that is what's giving the belief that this city's unsafe when, in fact, we're the safest big city in America.
Menefee: Fair to say you disagree with [inaudible]?
Mayor Adams: I disagree that as he stated that it does not deter violence. What it does, and what I believe it should do, it keeps dangerous people off our streets.
Scotto: All right. Yankee game today or what? What are we doing?
Mayor Adams: No, I have a whole host of things I have to do and I didn't warm up my arms, so I can't throw the first pitch the way I normally do.
I want to make sure I'm in good shape, but go Yankees.
Menefee: Yankee fans and Mets fans, hope you're saving it for a World Series matchup again. 2000 revisited.
Mayor Adams: I'm looking forward to that. I have to get a ring for the city.
Menefee: There you go. All right. We appreciate you taking the time to join us this morning. Good luck with the summit.
Mayor Adams: Take care.