New York’s Democratic mayor has taken aim at “border czar” Kamala Harris for the spiralling migrant crisis, saying she has “too much in her portfolio”.Eric Adams, a centrist, has criticised the Biden administration for its failure to provide federal aid to help the city, but it is the first time he has attacked the vice president directly - laying bare an apparent division between the country’s highest-profile Democrats.“There needs to be an individual who is dedicated to do the decompression strategy for the federal government,” Mr Adams said during a City Hall news conference.“It is often stated that as the role of the VP has too much in her portfolio to be focused on just doing that decompression strategy. If not, the decompression strategy can’t be New York City.”New York - a so-called sanctuary city for refugees - has been overwhelmed by nearly 70,000 new arrivals, mostly illegal migrants bussed in from Texas.The influx has put a huge strain on the city’s budget as well as its system for sheltering homeless people.
President Joe Biden asked Ms Harris to lead on a number of portfolios, including his administration’s efforts to stem the surge of migrants across the southern border, and abortion rights.
Sources close to Ms Harris reportedly told New York Times reporters that she was not happy being tasked with the intractable migration crisis, which is seen as a politically undesirable portfolio, and wanted a more "softball" foreign policy assignment.
She quickly came under fire from Republicans for not immediately visiting the region and has been criticised for not doing enough to stem the problem.
Only 39 per cent of Americans approve of Ms Harris’s performance on the issue, according to a recent aggregate of surveys compiled by the polling site FiveThirtyEight.
Republicans in Congress seized on Mr Adams’ comments.
“The Biden administration has created the worst border crisis in our nation’s history and the buck stops there,” US Representative Claudia Tenney said. “The vice president has proven incompetent and lacks the leadership skills to combat this catastrophe that threatens the security of our taxpayers and legal residents daily.”
Mr Adams said the White House “must come up with how they’re going to distribute the $800 million” in migrant aid that was part of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending plan that Biden signed in December.
The city has only been awarded less than $8 million of the $1 billion requested by the mayor.
“That is taking far too long. We have to get that done. Let’s get the money flowing,” he said.
Mr Adams on Wednesday announced a shift in policy that could see them resettled throughout New York state and in other cities across the country.
In a press conference on Wednesday he said, “Please don’t ask me which cities because I don’t need you running to the cities and stopping them,” he told reporters at the announcement. “I know you enjoy pitting cities against cities, so we are not giving you that information.”