Can Mayor Adams manage a crisis? Migrant arrivals pose a major test.

Mayor Eric Adams was embroiled in the throes of a humanitarian crisis unfolding on his watch. But when he addressed the television cameras last week, he drew on his trademark swagger.

“From 9/11 to the hurricanes, throughout my entire professional career, I had to manage crises,” said Adams, a former cop, Brooklyn borough president and state lawmaker, during a Fox 5 interview.

He added: “You know what I say to New Yorkers? Thank God I'm the mayor right now as we manage these difficult crises because it's something I had to do throughout my professional career as an adult.”

Crises are often said to be defining moments for New York City mayors, as they provide an opportunity to show leadership and effective policymaking. Adams’ predecessor Bill de Blasio won praise for managing the city’s vaccination effort during the pandemic, and before him, Michael Bloomberg was credited with shepherding the city’s economic recovery and the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan after 9/11.

Adams now faces his own watershed crisis following this month’s lifting of Title 42, the pandemic-era border policy that allowed for the swift expulsion of migrants to Mexico. City officials have stretched the shelter system in new ways, with limited federal assistance, but the last several weeks have been marked by hastily announced plans and an increasing sense of desperation.

“The whole situation is dismaying, but we knew it was coming,” said Ettagale Blauer, an 82-year-old writer who lives in the West Village. “So there needed to be a plan.”

“We shouldn't constantly be surprised,” she added.

Addressing the migrant issue has been a test for Adams on many levels, including policy; collaboration with other elected officials, logistics planning and messaging. For more than a year, the mayor has sought to portray the task of caring for tens of thousands of newly arrived migrants as an untenable and expensive burden that demands federal intervention.

But his efforts to secure state and federal assistance have been mixed. He has helped the city secure $1 billion in migrant care funding from the state budget with the help of Gov. Kathy Hochul, a close political ally. But his strategy of criticizing President Joe Biden as he seeks re-election has angered White House officials and could ultimately backfire.

The dynamic with Washington underscores how Adams, who is prone to hyperbole, has had to balance a message of urgency while also projecting a sense of authority over an unpredictable and evolving situation.

A controversy over school gyms

Criticism of the mayor's response peaked last week with the rollout of a plan to use public school gyms as migrant shelters, which was seemingly scrapped after protests broke out.

“I know that there were a lot of folks who are wondering what happened and why it happened the way it did,” said Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate.

Confusion around the issue grew on Wednesday, when administration officials summoned reporters to City Hall for an update on the crisis and then refused to answer questions about the city’s decision to suddenly move a group of migrants from a Coney Island school. They also declined to say what would happen with other school gyms, where cots and supplies had been sent.

Fabien Levy, a press secretary for Adams, later said the gyms were always meant to be temporary housing and may still be used as overflow sites for newly arriving migrants.

Asked to comment on this story, Levy noted that the city has counted and served more than 67,000 asylum seekers over the last year.

“This crisis requires an all-hands on deck approach and the mayor has been clear we need everyone to roll up their sleeves and help respond to this crisis,” he said in a statement. “We welcome suggestions from our partners who want to aid those in need, but we need solutions, not just complaints about where shelters should be placed. We will continue to communicate with local elected officials as we open more sites, as we have since day one.”

Williams expressed sympathy for the magnitude of the challenge the mayor is facing. As many as 700 migrants have been arriving daily on average, according to city officials.

The city has considered a host of proposals, including a famous skyscraper, tents in Central Park and the Citi Field parking lots and, most controversially, a jail on Rikers Island.

But the public advocate cited Adams’ failure to communicate with community members as one of his administration’s critical shortfallings.

“There are times where things are happening and people are saying we didn't know, we didn't get a heads up,” Williams said. “That has been something that's been heard throughout the administration, even before the major crisis.”

The same frustration has been expressed within the City Council, whose relationship with Adams has soured amid a fight over budget cuts.

“He definitely has met with us,” said City Councilmember Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side. “But that's different in my opinion than a constant, for lack of a better word, ongoing reach-out.”

Adams recently signed an executive order to temporarily suspend some of the rules that make up the city’s landmark right-to-shelter law, which guarantees a bed to anyone who requests one. The mayor described the decision as “difficult,” but argued that the loosening of requirements, such as kitchens and bathrooms for families, was a necessary emergency measure in the face of dwindling shelter spaces.

City lawmakers, who were taken by surprise, faulted the mayor for taking a heavy-handed approach.

“Responding to a crisis requires multilayered government action that is collaborative and effectively managed, and executive orders are no substitute,” said Shirley Limongi, a spokesperson for the Council, in a statement. “The way these orders have been rolled out, without communication to the Council and other stakeholders, is problematic.”

A different kind of mayor

For progressives, the mayor’s management of the migrant crisis speaks to larger issues about his policy priorities and governing style. They have cited the expansion of policing in the subways, cuts to libraries and other safety net services, and the scaling back and administrative problems surrounding universal pre-K — one of the signature policy victories of de Blasio's tenure.

“We have a mayor now who's out until 2 a.m. and is kind of boasting about his ‘at the club’ cred,” said Zara Nasir, the executive director of the People’s Plan, a grassroots advocacy group. “And I think what people potentially feel is missing is this kind of very important combination of vision and governance.”

Unlike his two predecessors, who did not always appear to love the public-facing ceremonial duties of being mayor, Adams has enthusiastically shown up for flag-raisings and cultural events, and has delivered multiple speeches before religious groups reflecting on his divine mission.

He has patrolled the subways, spent a night at an emergency migrant shelter and volunteered to serve meals to the homeless.

“I think it shows empathy. I think it shows that he wants to be with the people,” said State Senator Jessica Ramos, who represents Queens.

“But that is not the whole job,” she added. “You also need to implement the programs and services that people need.”

Some of the mayor’s defenders say the public needs to temper expectations that he could single-handedly solve a humanitarian crisis.

“The mayor doesn't have a magic wand,” said Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, a group that represents the city’s business interests.

Everett Stembridge, 65, who was walking across Union Square, said he believed the mayor had done a good job managing the migrant crisis.

Stembridge, a former assistant principal who lives in the Bronx, remembered Adams as initially striking a welcoming tone toward migrants.

“But I think just like anything else, the numbers can become overwhelming,” he said.

Polarizing rhetoric

Left-leaning Democrats say they are most disturbed by Adams’ rhetoric around the migrants.

Adams has often cast new arrivals’ economic toll on taxpayers, which administration officials estimate will exceed $4 billion over the next two years, as a cost that undermines the city.

Last month, he said the city was being “destroyed” by the migrant crisis.

“The federal government has the biggest responsibility here,” Ramos said. “They're not giving us the funds that we need in order to deal with these new people who are coming to New York.”

“But that is not an excuse to not be resourceful and figure out how we can help them come into New York in a way that is welcoming, and isn't polarizing and divisive,” she added.

Adams last week erroneously stated that 50% of the city’s hotels were occupied by migrants, suggesting that they were siphoning vital revenues from the city’s tourism industry. Some, including the Daily News, questioned the mayor’s math. Adams later clarified that the city was renting over 40% of hotels with 51 to 200 units. There is also some dispute over the number of migrants arriving each day, as cited by City Hall.

Adams has fired back at critics, portraying them as complainers who have neither offered to help the city nor provided any alternative solutions.

“Did you go to Washington to get us more money?” he said on Wednesday. “What have you done for the migrants and where would you like for me to house them?”

However, the volunteers who have been helping migrants find food and shelter have criticized the Adams administration’s decision to cut them out of a new intake operation at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown.

"There's no way that you can justify shutting down operations here, and opening another so-called 'welcome center' and not welcoming the people that have really been putting themselves on the line to help the migrants,” said Power Malu of the group Artists Athletes Activists, which has been shepherding migrants for more than a year.

"Since day one we've been picking up the pieces," he said.

‘I deserve better’

Conversations about the mayor’s management abilities can feel racially fraught. Adams, who is only the city’s second Black mayor, and his supporters have argued that he faces greater scrutiny than his previous white counterparts.

Adams himself has complained that coverage of him is overly negative and written by a mostly white press corps. He has also maintained that he is unfairly targeted by former de Blasio officials.

“This is not acceptable,” he told reporters in January. “I deserve better from a former administration.”

Those who criticize Adams concede how public perception is shaped by race and gender.

“Do Black electeds, Black women and women have a higher bar? The answer is one thousand percent,” Williams said.

Some have expressed concerns that criticism of Adams has been muted among left-wing Democrats because of his identities as a Black man and as a working-class New Yorker who struggled.

But Anthonine Pierre, who heads the Brooklyn Movement Center, a nonprofit focused on social justice issues, accused the mayor of using “Blackness as a shield.”

Pierre said two things can be true at once.

“I think that there are some folks who just don't believe in a Black leader, and Black folks being good at management,” she said. “But that needs to be parsed from the fact that we have a Black mayor who is not necessarily doing a great job of managing the city now.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct Jessica Ramos' position in state legislature.

Clarification: The story has been updated to clarify a statement Mayor Eric Adams made last month on how the migrant crisis is affecting the city.