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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. First of all, thanks to Michael Hill and Jacqueline Cincotta for getting the winter membership drive off to a good start this morning. We're not going to keep talking about it right now, but folks keep those sustaining memberships coming as we try to hit that goal they were discussing of 750 new sustainers or with sustaining upgrades today for that $30,000 challenge from the generous potential donor to the station if we succeed. Thank you all for considering it.

We have Senator Kirsten Gillibrand coming up on today's show. She just introduced a bill to protect in vitro fertilization nationally, in light of the Alabama Supreme Court decision, threatening that service under an Anti-abortion Law there, and that threat could become national. Senator Gillibrand on her bill to address that and more. Also, like we often do during membership drives, we'll have some fun with a little quiz to break things up and give away some prizes. For this winter fundraising drive, it'll be a 10-question quiz series, a 10-question quiz each day.

I wrote 10 for today. Get two in a row right, and you'll win a Brian Lehrer Show baseball cap. That's coming up. Washington Post's personal finance columnist, Michelle Singletary, you know her? She's been on the show many times. She's so amazing. Michelle will continue our coverage of scams to watch out for on your phone or elsewhere and what to do when you encounter one. That's coming up. We begin with our usual Wednesday visit from our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim with excerpts from an analysis of Mayor Adams Weekly Tuesday news conference. Hi, Liz. Thanks, as always, for keeping us on your Wednesday schedule. Welcome back to the show.

Elizabeth Kim: Hi, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: We'll start today with that news coming out of Queens, which I think shocked a lot of people, no matter what their position on asylum seeker policy. Officials dispersed a makeshift shelter housing 74 People, 74. In one basement, a furniture store, the fire department described the situation as dangerous living conditions, reporting at least 40 beds on the property, actually rotated sleeping shifts, 74 people in 40 beds. Here's a clip of the mayor on this basement housing bust.

Mayor Adams: The system did its job. It was first we responded by, I believe FDNY, and then DOB came in and made sure that those who were there were removed, and they were given the services that were available. This was not brought to our attention until we had city agencies go out and investigate. We're still investigating exactly what happened here. When you have situations like what we're facing here, there's some that's going to attempt to exploit it. Some are going to attempt to do illegal housing. We have an obligation with DOB, FDNY and all of our services to respond and take necessary action. That's what was done last night.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, I don't know if you've ever been to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

Elizabeth Kim: I have, yes.

Brian Lehrer: This made me think of that, mostly from around the turn of the Last Century, where they showed how a lot of recent immigrants from those days had to sleep in shifts on beds as they went out and did their work on whatever shift. Here we are with this kind of thing again. What was the mayor talking about when he said people attempting to exploit something?

Elizabeth Kim: It was interesting. The mayor said he got a call last night or around 1:00 AM in the morning about this particular complaint, but he didn't have any details to give to reporters. Your listeners should go to gothamist.com, because my colleagues, they were on the case, and they found out exactly what happened. What happened was, this is a commercial storefront in Queens. The property owner leases it to a tenant, and that tenant, who happens to be West African, decided that he wanted to use that space to give it to West African migrants who had no place to go.

Now, he's also getting something out of it as well. He told our reporters that he was renting the beds for about $300 per person. He was also buying them a gym membership, so they had a place to shower, but he said his bigger goal in doing this was that these were people that came from his country that he wanted to help. They had nowhere else to go. They found E-bikes on the property as well. These men were presumably making a living by doing deliveries as many immigrants do. Immediately after this was discovered, the question then that was raised to the mayor is, "Is this an outgrowth of the city's 30-day shelter limit?"

Again, what that is, is that for single migrants, they have 30 days to stay in a designated shelter. After that, they are encouraged to leave, but they can reapply for housing. What has happened is, there's a long backup. People do go and try to reapply for housing, but they've been waiting weeks, and many of them have no choice but to live on the streets. In this particular circumstance, these men found a different option. This particular business owner gave them this option. The question is, "Is this going to become more common, and how dangerous is it for these people to be living in these illegal conversions?"

Brian Lehrer: Is somebody in trouble here? Because what I think you're describing is a community system that helps people stay out of the shelter system, New Yorkers who don't like how many asylum seekers are coming, sometimes don't like it, because it's putting such a burden on the taxpayers for housing, so many of the recent arrivals. Here's a private system, people from the community of some West African countries helping recent arrivals from West African countries, not great conditions, may be really dangerous, but is anybody in trouble here?

Elizabeth Kim: That's going to be the question, and how the city eventually handles this. The person who leased the space has been very upfront. He told not only Gothamist but other outlets as well, like this was his intention. This was what he was doing. This was the arrangement. He's not hiding anything, but at the same time, it is a violation. Who will be served the violation? Will it be the property owner? Will it be this business owner? It's unclear yet.

Brian Lehrer: Did they disperse-- I saw the word disperse was in some of the news reporting. Did they kick the 74 people out of this basement and those beds they were sharing? If so, where did they go?

Elizabeth Kim: They did. They sent them to two separate shelters. Again, we don't know whether those men were immediately placed because there's a long line to get placed. Again, this is an outgrowth of the migrant crisis and the desperate need for beds and also the city trying to cap the amount of time that migrants stay in shelters.

Brian Lehrer: Also relating to migrants, we'll play another clip. The mayor signaled his interest in changing New York sanctuary city policy, when he said this at yesterday's news conference in response to a question about allowing cooperation with ICE, the federal immigration enforcement agency, in instances where someone is suspected of a crime.

Mayor Adams: I want to go back to the standards of the previous mayors who, I believe, subscribed to my belief that people who are suspected of committing serious crimes in the city should be held accountable.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, what are the standards of those previous mayors that Adams is referring to?

Elizabeth Kim: The city sanctuary rules actually date back to the '80s, under Mayor Ed Koch. In 1985, Mayor Koch put out an executive order, saying that city officials wouldn't report undocumented immigrants to federal immigration officials. The reason for that was because they didn't want immigrants to be afraid of using city services, of being afraid to report a crime, of being afraid of enrolling their children in schools.

That was done as an executive order. There was an exception to that, which was, in the case that someone is accused of a crime, in that particular case, the city would be willing to refer that person to federal authorities. The practice was continued under Dinkins, under Giuliani. Bloomberg actually raised the standard a bit by saying that the city would no longer detain foreign-born inmates on Rikers. Again, there was still that exception unless they were accused of a crime. What the mayor is now referring to is how that bar was raised further by Mayor de Blasio.

Under Mayor de Blasio. This is known as the detainer law. When I say detain foreign-born inmates, I'm referring to this program in which federal immigration officials would ask the city if there was someone on their list, if they would detain them for 48 hours. What de Blasio did was he raised the bar by saying that they would only do so if there was a warrant, and the warrant was signed by a judge.

There was also a carve-out for exceptions here, but the exceptions were different now. It was not for someone accused of a crime. They had to be convicted of a crime over the last five years, and it's a list of 170 crimes.

Brian Lehrer: Serious crimes, which could result in cooperation with ICE for potential deportation. Right?

Elizabeth Kim: That's correct. That is what the mayor is referring to when he says, "I want to go back to the practice of previous mayors." He's talking about the mayors before de Blasio.

Brian Lehrer: It seems to me that the central question here, and I know a reporter asked this at the news conference yesterday, is due process. If somebody's accused of a crime, that's different than being convicted of a crime. If someone commits a serious crime, and they're convicted of it, then I think a lot of people would support cooperating with ICE and putting that person in for potential deportation proceedings. If a person is only accused of a crime, they may have done it, or they may have not done it. That's what the mayor's going to revert to?

Elizabeth Kim: That's correct, Brian. He was directly asked as a follow-up, "Are you saying that these individuals will not be given due process?" He basically said, "Yes." The mayor does this often. This is very consistent with his rhetoric about, for instance, people on Rikers. He often says people on Rikers who are being held, right? They're being held there often awaiting a trial date. He often just says, "These are people who have committed serious crimes."

He's doing the same thing with undocumented immigrants. He's saying, "These are people who have assaulted police officers. They've robbed people." These are in fact people who have been accused of those things, but he's not making that distinction. To him, there is no distinction. It's a very pro-cop approach to looking at the criminal justice system.

Brian Lehrer: One more from yesterday, and I watched the news conferences, I usually do. Boy, was it about migrants from almost top to bottom. Yet again, this remains such a big issue in the city. Honestly, I feel for the mayor because he gets it from all sides. He gets it from advocates for things like we were just talking about. He gets it from the right for this one that we're going to talk about now. He has a $53 million pilot program to distribute prepaid credit cards to migrants and shelters for food and baby supplies. Here's what he had to say about that.

Mayor Adams: We are required to feed people who are in our care. When I spoke with DM Williams Isam and the team, I said, "How do we do it cheaper? How do we bring down a course? How do we minimize food waste?" That's what we did. $13 a day, able to bring down the course, make it more efficient, able to invest in local businesses, MWBE. This is just a W. There's some things we are going to do, JR, that we are not going to get real appreciation until later. That's just the reality of being the mayor of the city of New York.

Brian Lehrer: Under what context, Liz, did the mayor launch this pilot program? How are migrants and shelters being fed and receiving baby supplies before this?

Elizabeth Kim: The city had been contracting out this work. They've gotten a lot of scrutiny over these emergency contracts. Because the price of these contracts are quite high. The mayor has been under a lot of pressure to bring down spending on migrants, which critics have said has been very badly managed. You're right, he's being criticized from the left for, in many ways, not just mismanagement but also not doing enough for migrants.

Then also what happened was there was this political backlash on the right to this credit card program. In many ways, it caught him off guard. Surprisingly so, I would think, because we know from experience, as recently as the pandemic, that there is a lot of conservative and even liberal opposition to giving people free money. Like you think about the pandemic checks and how there was opposition to that, and it was controversial under Biden.

There's the same principle here. Here the mayor was trying to bring down costs. This is significantly cheaper than having a contractor come in and provide them food. Food by the way that the migrants were not eating. There were many complaints that the migrants didn't like the food that the city was providing. The mayor comes up with this plan that's cheaper. On its face, it seems to be make more sense for migrants themselves. It gives them the choice of what to buy.

The way it played out in the New York Post was the mayor is giving migrants credit cards. This headline just took off on the right, on Fox News. The mayor was killed about it. He spent days trying to explain and justify the program. The political saying, "If you're explaining, you're losing." Since that time, he has still been trying to defend this program. It all started out as this effort, which he said was about fiscal management,

Brian Lehrer: Saving money, giving credit cards to buy food with obviously limited amounts of money on those credit cards instead of the city itself having to create cafeteria service for tens of thousands of people. Not to mention diaper service because that's part of what the money is designated for for those families with young kids. Well, Liz [unintelligible 00:17:46] what people call the migrant crisis is not going away. It's still front and center for the mayor, and he still can't get Washington. He said this five times in the news conference yesterday, and it's true, he still can't get Washington to take responsibility for what is really a national issue.

Elizabeth Kim: Right. Although the president is now considering an executive action that would shut down the border. We'll have to see what comes of that. The president is planning to visit the border on Thursday.

Brian Lehrer: Our city hall reporter and lead, Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim. Read her articles about this and other things on Gothamist, and she'll be back next Wednesday, we trust after the Mayor's next Tuesday News conference. Liz, thanks as always.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

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