Eric Adams, for his part, says New York City’s “right to asylum” policy does not apply to migrants.

As Mayor Eric Adams said this week, New York City’s “right to asylum” policy does not apply to the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who have sought asylum in the neighborhoods since last spring.

The Democrat’s comments on WABC Radio’s “Sid and Friends in the Morning” came as officials struggled to deal with a flood of migrants in the sanctuary city and begged federal officials to pay a bill Adams estimates is up to $2 billion.

“The court has ruled that this is a city of refuge,” he told host Sid Rosenberg. “We have a moral and legal obligation to comply with this. We do not believe that asylum seekers are included in all the talk about the right to asylum.

“There’s no more room in the hotel, and the reason there’s no more room in the hotel is because the federal government isn’t doing its job,” said Adams, who visited El Paso, Texas earlier this month to see firsthand the national crisis that spills over into the city.

More than 41,600 asylum seekers have arrived in New York since spring, and 77 temporary shelters and four emergency response and assistance centers have been opened, with two more on the way in downtown Manhattan and the Brooklyn cruise terminal, officials said this week. .

The city’s “right to sanctuary” law is one of the strictest sanctuary city laws in the country, requiring the government to provide a roof to anyone without a home on any given night.

It was enacted following a 1979 Legal Aid Society lawsuit against the city in defense of six homeless people. The group won the case, enshrining the “right of asylum” in law.

The Legal Aid Society and the Homeless Coalition criticized the mayor for his comments.

“This is not a responsibility that Mayor Adams can refuse, and he knows better,” the organizations said in a press release.

The mayor’s press secretary, Fabienne Levy, hit back at the organization.

“Legal aid’s suggestion that the city is neglecting its [sic] legal obligations are very far from the truth,” he told The Post in an email. “But as we’ve been making clear for months, and as Legal Aid even stated today, the federal government has a duty here, as does the state.”

Adams has sought support from both the state and federal governments, but has only been reimbursed $10 million of the $366 million spent on the migrant crisis as of last month, Budget Director Jacques Jiha said this week.

Earlier this month, Hizzoner wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post urging President Biden to close the southern border until migrant asylum applications are processed and outlined a “decompression” strategy to ease the crisis and resettle migrants.

Millions of migrants have been expelled from the border under the Section 42 emergency measure during the pandemic.

Its planned expiration last month has resulted in a surge in the number of people seeking asylum from unstable governments in the Caribbean, Central and South America that are clamping down on the border.

The measure is still in place, and the Supreme Court is due to hear arguments against its expiration in February.