It’s amazing how some things haven’t changed during the Advent season.
More than 2,000 years ago, a young couple traveled to a strange land. The woman was pregnant, and the husband was a humble carpenter. The town of Bethlehem was not so welcoming to the newly arrived migrants. There were no accommodations for them, so they had to find a manger for Mary to welcome the first arrival of Jesus.
Fast forward to today, we have politicians here in New York City, including Mayor Eric Adams, who put their wet index finger up to the wind since Election Day and discovered that perhaps President-elect Donald Trump’s winning margin has given them pause to be so accommodating to migrants arriving here.
Last week, Mayor Adams answered a press conference question on migrants and whether he would meet with incoming Trump border czar Tom Homan. “But we cannot ignore … the fact that the American people have communicated to us loudly and clearly: We have a broken system. They want to fix [it], and we need to fix our immigration system,” he said.
Adams doubled down on his commitment to moving toward the right on open borders and challenged the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to “cancel him” over this about-face. “I’m not going to be warring with this administration,” Adams said. “I’m going to be working with this administration. President Trump is the president-elect. And whomever he chooses to run his agencies. I’m looking forward to sitting down and seeing how we can make New York better.”
Fellow Democratic leaders in the city took to social media to castigate Adams’ flip-flop. Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, posted on X that the mayor’s comments “scapegoat migrants arriving in our city for his own failure to support policies that benefit New Yorkers.”
“He denigrated immigrants and non-citizens as unworthy of basic rights,” Williams wrote. Williams was reacting to Adams’ comment the previous day at a weekly City Hall press conference.
“The Constitution is for Americans,” Adams told reporters. “I’m not a person that snuck into this country. My ancestors have been here for a long time.” Late last month, federal officials released some startling statistics regarding some dangerous migrants who have arrived in the city.
According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency data, of the 759,218 illegal-border crossers living in the five boroughs, the feds estimate as of Nov. 17, a large segment of them, more than 58,600 — or 7.7% — were either previously convicted of crimes or had criminal charges pending,
And of those convicts or the alleged criminal migrants, some 1,053, nearly 2%, are “suspected or known gang members,” according to the feds.
So, this Advent season, we need to be aware of those seeking a better life in a foreign country.
We need to be aware as Catholics to reach down and pull them up. It’s what we, as Catholics, are instructed to do.
