As the blowback continues over Democrat Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to give illegal border crossers in city shelters pre-paid debit cards, ostensibly to use to buy food, members of the city council have asked for an investigation into the scheme.
Adams proposed his new policy early in February, and insisted the program that would allow illegals to feed themselves would save the city millions of dollars in often wasted food-service costs.
Mayor Eric Adams in Manhattan on February 12, 2024.(Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
The mayor estimated the pre-paid cards would cost the city $53 million, and would allow migrants to spend $35 per day, or $1,000 a month, to buy food to prepare for themselves, instead of being handed pre-made meals supplied by the city.
One part of the program that has raised eyebrows, though, is the no-bid contract that Adams doled out to launch the program.
According to WLNY-TV, Councilmember Gale Brewer blasted the mayor for the contract award, saying, “I think you should bid it out to see who would do the best job at the best cost for taxpayers.”
BREAKING: City Council calls for an INVESTIGATION of Mayor Adams plan to give illegals $10,000 Debit Cards.
The $53 million contract would give, Mobility Capital Finance, who the NY Mayor touts as ‘Minority Owned’ lots of fees for services, including:
– $125,000 one-time set-up… pic.twitter.com/nUnjc2i5Y0
— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) February 21, 2024
Brewer demanded the council launch an investigation into the mayor’s program, set to cover 500 families as a test case.
“I don’t know exactly how it’s going to work. I do see from the release it will be for diapers and baby products and food, but you have to be careful that that’s what it’s actually going to be for,” Brewer noted.
For his part, Adams said the debit card company, Mobility Capital Finance, was attractive to him because the company was minority owned.
WATCH — Adams After Schools Had to Close to Shelter Migrants: “We’ve Done a Great Job,” Don’t Blame Sanctuary Status:
“WMBs — you know, women- and minority-owned businesses — have historically been locked out … So, I know I’m disrupting what people traditionally would like for us to do,” Adams said of the company.
Adams also insisted he had no personal relationship with the principles at Mobility Capital Finance, and quipped, “We don’t hang out in the Hamptons together or go to baseball games together.”
Meanwhile, as Breitbart News reported, fully 56 percent of New Yorkers are living near the poverty line, a segment of the population that has surged since 2021.
The number of New Yorkers living in poverty increased by 500,000 from 2021 to 2022, the largest increase in poverty since the data first started being tracked 12 years ago.
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