By Parveen Chopra
NYC Mayor opens up on public safety, hate crimes, immigration, and more...
New York: Like so many New Yorkers, Mayor Eric Adams grew up with adversity - and overcame it. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck the city, he moved a mattress into his office and worked around the clock to deliver donated meals and PPE to essential workers and vulnerable New Yorkers.
In addition to continuing to fight for a better quality of life for all, Adams became a national leader on public health policy after reversing his Type 2 diabetes by changing to a plant-based diet. He then launched a personal mission to educate New Yorkers about preventative care and wellness. There is now a successful proactive public health effort across the city and increased education in schools and with high-risk populations in lower-income areas, partnering with civic organizations and health experts.
Having served the people of New York City as an NYPD officer, State Senator, Brooklyn Borough President, and now as the 110th Mayor, Adams has given voice to a diverse coalition of working families in all five boroughs. He is leading the fight to bring back the city’s economy, reduce inequality, improve public safety, and build a stronger, healthier city that delivers for all New Yorkers.
Laser-focused on not only listening to the Indian community's concerns on issues like public safety, hate crimes, immigration, and inclusive food options, but he is also making concrete steps to address those.
In an exclusive interview with The South Asian Times, Adams says that he is “fully engaged right now” to run for his second term as Mayor. Excerpts...
The South Asian Times: When campaigning for Mayor in 2021, you called yourself a ‘Pragmatic Progressive’ in an interview with The South Asian Times. Do you still stand by that description — that you are middle of the road? And is that what America needs from politicians and lawmakers?
Eric Adams: Yes, I still believe that that description fits me. I believe that the term progressive has been hijacked by those who embrace a far left and almost immature approach to governing. Idealism can't collide with realism when we put in place policies that hurt public safety, hurt businesses, hurt development, and hurt a practical approach to mental health. That is not being progressive; that is being reckless, and I consider myself to be very pragmatic, very common-sense, and very progressive about improving the lives of New Yorkers.
Are you running for Mayor for a second term this year?
Eric Adams: Yes, we are fully engaged right now. I'm still a Democrat. I will be running on an independent line. Our rules allow us to do that. You can still be a part of your party as others are doing, as you saw. Former state Governor Andrew Cuomo is also a Democrat, and he's deciding to do what I'm doing. I'm going to be running on my own line, safe and affordable, and I'm looking forward to getting votes on that line.
With President Trump’s tough policies on immigration, even legal permanent residents are fearful. What would you say to Indians in New York to reassure them?
Eric Adams: I would ask a question: Why are they afraid? And let me answer that question. They are afraid because loud noises that call themselves advocates instill fear in people. I was clear from the day the President was elected that our immigrant population should send their children to school. They should go to the hospital. They need healthcare. They should call the police if they are victim of a crime, they should go to their place of employment, and they should utilize all the services we have in the city, because whether you are undocumented or documented when you walk inside a store and buy a loaf of bread, no one is asking you your documentation status when you pay your taxes. Those tax dollars entitle you to city services.
So, what have we witnessed since the President was elected? We have not seen ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in our schools. We have not seen ICE in our houses or workshops. We have not seen ICE in our hospitals, nor have we seen ICE raid jobs. So what I stated - we should carry on with our lives - turned out to be correct. I did not feed into the hysteria and add to the fear - just the opposite.
All of these advocates should join me to tell people, don't live in fear. Go on with your lives. We're giving you the information you need to continue to be productive citizens in the city now. But I've been very clear: if you are a violent gang, if you are robbing and shooting people, if you're shooting police officers, if you are committing crimes, you should be arrested, you should serve your time, and you should be deported. And that is what 80% of New Yorkers believe, with me and many of our working-class immigrants sharing the same vision.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams at an India Day Parade with members of the community. (Photo courtesy: Mayorʼs Office of Ethnic and Community Media)
The Indian community in New York has done well for itself. Now they want safety and security, especially for their temples and religious practices. You have been presenting yourself as a law-and-order Mayor. Please tell us what you have accomplished in that area, and what more can you do?
Eric Adams: Public safety, as I stated over and over again, is the prerequisite to our prosperity. We have to be safe. We have done well in the city. We have brought down crime. When you look at the last quarter with the lowest number of shootings in the history of recorded history of the city, we must now match our success in bringing down crime with ensuring that people are feeling safe.
That's what we must do, and that's why we started a quality of life unit with 1,500 officers. They're going to be assigned to the precincts. Besides dealing with crime, they deal with the quality-of-life issues, abandoned vehicles, people injecting themselves with drugs on our streets, people who are doing illegal dumping, loud music playing, car racing, mopeds and dirt bikes on our streets. So we're now making sure that our success in numbers is equal to the success of how people are feeling by addressing quality of life issues. And we know that's important to the Indian community, and we're going to continue to lean into that.
Like the new antisemitism office in your administration, should there not be a department to tackle hate crimes against the Hindu community, who are witnessing such incidents at a growing scale?
Eric Adams: Yes, we have a hate crime office to look at all forms of hate. But we need to go where the major problem is. Jews make up 10% of the city population, yet they face over 61% of the hate crimes - a disproportionate number. So, we have to go where the urgency is, and we took a specific approach to driving down hate crimes and anti-semitism. We also saw a large number of people dealing with mental health issues, and we allocated a specific unit to address that.
Mayor Eric Adams in conversation with publisher Kamlesh C Mehta, admiring The South Asian Times for its wide coverage and value‐based content. (TSAT file photo)
Hindi is the most spoken language in India, and the primary language of 33% of Indian Americans. Will you support instituting it as an official language in NYC like Urdu and Bengali?
Eric Adams: Yes, there's no hesitation. I think it's important, when you look at the contribution the Indian community has made to the city, to make Hindi an official language. We should also tell you that we are starting to use new technology, artificial intelligence, that will be helpful to communicate with groups that have historically not been communicated to.
When you don't communicate the city services to groups who have language barriers, you're preventing them from accessing much-needed services, and we have been exploring the use of AI that can translate my message directly to our residents.
Running for Mayor in 2021, you promised NYC support to local ethnic media. It is widely noticed that the ad dollars share of ethnic media has come down.
Eric Adams: We supported the ethnic media in NYC during the Covid‐19 pandemic. In my first year‐and‐a‐half in office, more than $260 million was spent on ethnic media to disseminate the right information to their readers about COVID, which had a sun‐setting clause to it in 2023, so those dollars, coming from the federal government, finally went away.
During the pandemic, we saw a drastic change in how the ethnic media effectively disseminated the Covid‐related information. Then we went back to the normal funding levels as the money that we were getting from Washington, DC, during the pandemic was no longer there. We have gone back to the normal annual budget of $28 million now. However, proportionally, we're still making sure that our ethnic media partners receive some form of support with paid advertisements.
Parveen Chopra is the Founding Editor of ALotusInTheMud.com, the premier wellness and spirituality web magazine.
