Migrants leave New York for Canada with taxpayer-funded tickets

New York City Mayor Eric Adams confirmed reports that some of the migrants who were bussed to the city are leaving for Canada. The migrants are using taxpayer-funded bus tickets to leave the city before crossing the border upstate.

According to those local reports, the migrants wanted to get away from New York City’s crime and homelessness crises. Monday, Mayor Adams added that some of the migrants had other destinations in mind when they initially arrived in Texas. However, according to Adams, they were only offered to go to New York City.

“Some want to go to Canada, some want to go to warmer states, and we are there for them as they continue to move on with their pursuit of this dream,” Adams said in an interview with Fox 5 New York Monday. “Those who are seeking to go somewhere else, not we’re pushing or forcing, if they are seeking to go somewhere else, we are helping in the reticketing process.”

Adams has asked the state and federal governments for help to address the surge of migrants. The reports of migrants leaving New York City for Canada come as the city faces backlash over a decision to move migrants from a Manhattan hotel to a migrant facility at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal to make room for families and children at the hotel.

Many migrants at the new facility complained of a lack of privacy and “freezing” temperatures. Defending his administration’s decision, Adams spent Friday night at the terminal, sleeping on a cot through the night to highlight that the conditions at the terminal are safe and humane, even when temperatures reach below freezing outside.

“When we walked into the coldest night of the year, I wanted to really have solidarity to those who were seeking the American dream,” Adams said in an interview with Spectrum News NY1 Monday. “We had a good conversation, had a warm place to sleep, and I got up in the morning, had breakfast and talked to the asylum seekers.”