Mayor Eric Adams Slashes Funding to Migrants, Cancels City Budget Cuts

In an exclusive interview with Eyewitness News, Mayor Eric Adams announced Wednesday morning that drastic city budget cuts proposed for the coming fiscal year across all municipal agencies will be canceled and a hiring freeze will be lifted.

Adams explained that his administration is achieving this because of a “better-than-expected economic performance in 2023 that resulted in an upward revision to the city’s tax revenue forecast” and further cutbacks in city spending on asylum seekers.

“You’re not going to see some of those draconian steps that we were going to have to take that will get in the way of the cleanliness and the safety of our city,” Adams said.

Adams says New Yorkers should feel relieved. After two rounds of punishing budget cuts to all but the most essential city services, the budget is stabilizing. And a planned third round will no longer be necessary.

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With respect to migrants, the administration is slashing an additional 10% in asylum seeker spending –bringing the total reduction in spending on migrants to 30% — after a 20% reduction in spending already announced during the Preliminary Budget.

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Council member Robert Holden says the mayor’s cuts to migrant funding don’t go far enough.

“When does it end? I’d like to ask the mayor, ‘When do we see an ending to this?’ There is no ending,” Holden said. “The more you give, the more you hand out, the more that will come.”

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