After New York City Mayor Eric Adams referred to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as a "madman" in his latest reaction to the city's burgeoning migrant crisis, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said the mayor should instead be upset with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Adams complained Wednesday that the Biden White House has offered "no support" to the Big Apple as it deals with tens of thousands of newcomers – many of whom have been bused to New York City's Port Authority Bus Terminal by Abbott on a regular basis for more than a year.
The mayor warned the crisis will "destroy New York City" and claimed the problem started "with a madman down in Texas."
"It really is astonishing hypocrisy," Cruz said Thursday on "The Faulkner Focus." "You've got Eric Adams, you've got [New York Gov. Kathy Hochul], you've got [Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser and San Francisco Mayor London Breed] – all of them are discovering suddenly the burdens of Joe Biden's open borders and illegal immigration."
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"And they're seeing thousands… of illegal immigrants. And they're discovering that it drives up crime rates… It overcrowds the schools and overcrowds the hospitals," he went on.
"And I've got to say, coming from Texas, it's amusing."
Cruz said Texas has long dealt with an exponentially greater burden from the open border and migrant crisis, saying that Adams sounds "cute" when he cries foul over 100,000 migrants, while Texas has dealt with 7 million since Biden took office.
He said Adams, however, only likes to blame states like Texas and Florida instead of where the blame truly lies – on his fellow Democrats.
"This is a political decision by Joe Biden, by Kamala Harris, and, by the way, by Chuck Schumer. If Eric Adams wants to talk to someone, Chuck Schumer lives in New York City," he said.
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"He can pick up the phone and tell Chuck Schumer to stop fighting for open borders, to stop protecting the Biden administration as they lawlessly open the borders," Cruz said.
In November 2022 remarks, Schumer claimed the U.S. should embrace migrants and DREAMers in part because of a labor shortage and a native "population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to."
"[O]ur ultimate goal is to help the DREAMers, but to get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented there are here," he said.
On FOX News, Cruz also criticized Healey's state's handling of migrants – as the Democrat had previously spoken out in support of sanctuary city policy, but recently declared a state of emergency over "rapidly expanding capacity in an unsustainable manner" within the state's shelter system.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis previously flew about 50 migrants to Martha's Vineyard, Mass., which caused an uproar on the left.
Cruz called such complaints "utter hypocrisy," given the pressures a similarly-sized town like Del Rio, Texas has death with.
"They freaked out [after DeSantis' flight]. They declared an emergency. They called in the National Guard and they deported them within 24 hours," he said.
Del Rio, by comparison, has seen as many as 15,000 illegal migrants on some days, according to Cruz.
Last year in Pennsylvania, some Republicans also attempted to take action against Biden administration-sanctioned migrant flights that were landing in Allentown and Wilkes-Barre.
Now-former State Sen. Mario Scavello, whose Mount Pocono district sat halfway between the two airports, drafted a plan at the time that would have redirected flights from Pennsylvania to neighboring Delaware – the president's home state.
The state's 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee, State Sen. Doug Mastriano of Chambersburg, had also drafted a plan that would have levied international remittances from illegal immigrants wiring money abroad, and divert the revenue to the state's property tax fund.
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