{"id":273138,"date":"2023-09-10T06:58:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-10T06:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=273138"},"modified":"2023-09-12T07:06:41","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T07:06:41","slug":"the-city-we-knew-we-are-about-to-lose-why-nyc-mayor-adams-was-so-wrong-about-immigrations-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=273138","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe City We Knew, We Are About to Lose\u201d Why NYC Mayor Adams Was So Wrong About Immigration\u2019s Impact."},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>John Derbyshire \u2013 The Unz Review Sept 8, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>New York City Mayor <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/articles\/john-derbyshire-guess-what-nyc-mayor-adams-calls-tx-gov-abbott-for-sending-illegals-to-his-sanctuary-city\">Eric Adams<\/a> is <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/letters\/a-reader-points-out-that-the-last-immigration-pause-didn-t-come-until-elites-felt-the-heat-themselves\">feeling the heat<\/a> being generated by the tens of thousands of <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/nyc-mayor-adams-has-migrant-crisis-solution-attack-living-standards-of-n-y-working-class\">illegal aliens pouring into his city,<\/a> causing excruciating administrative and budgetary dilemmas for the city government. It\u2019s hard to feel much sympathy for New Yorkers. In fact it\u2019s hard not to laugh at the fools.<\/p>\n<p>They have brought these <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/biden-s-nyc-migrant-crime-wave-swamps-police-blotter\">misfortunes<\/a> on themselves by voting for an Open Borders party to run the federal government and for local politicians who cherish New York as a <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/articles\/the-illegal-alien-chickens-come-home-to-roost-for-sanctuary-cities-with-shelters-packed-to-the-rafters-will-they-learn-their-lesson\">Sanctuary City<\/a> with a local <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecity.nyc\/2023\/5\/30\/23743154\/robert-hayes-right-shelter-adams-asylum\">ordinance<\/a> guaranteeing sheltered accommodation to anyone who asks for it.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;But what happens when a city that is obligated to provide shelter for everyone runs out of shelter?&quot;<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NkGxwtvq5j\">https:\/\/t.co\/NkGxwtvq5j<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; David Cruz (@CWEBCRUZER) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CWEBCRUZER\/status\/1687093201239187456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 3, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It is, though, interesting to speculate how a city with a high proportion of very well-educated voters\u2014academics, intellectuals, professionals, and successful business people\u2014how such a city gets itself into such a mess. I don\u2019t have an answer, but I think I\u2019ve identified some contributing factors.<\/p>\n<p>Here is <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/too-much-personality-nyc-mayor-eric-adams-is-like-trump-if-trump-were-also-black-vegan-and-maybe-gay\">Eric Adams,<\/a> Mayor of New York City, speaking on Wednesday evening this week to what the <em>New York Times<\/em> described as \u201da town hall-style gathering in Manhattan\u201d [<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/09\/07\/nyregion\/adams-migrants-destroy-nyc.html\">In Escalation, Adams Says Migrant Crisis \u2018Will Destroy New York City\u2019<\/a> <\/em>by Emma G. Fitzsimmons, September 7, 2023]. The subject was the mighty flood of illegal aliens into his city.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">[<em>Clip<\/em>: And let me tell you something, New Yorkers. Never in my life have I had a problem that I could not see an ending to. I don\u2019t see an ending to this. I don\u2019t see an ending to this.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">This issue will destroy New York City, <em>destroy<\/em> New York City. We\u2019re getting ten thousand migrants [<em>a.k.a. <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/undocumented-workers-in-u-s-illegal-infiltrators-in-israel\"><em>illegal infiltrators<\/em><\/a>] a month. One time we were just getting Venezuela; now we\u2019re getting Ecuador, we\u2019re getting Russian-speaking coming through Mexico, now we\u2019re getting Western Africa. Now we\u2019re getting people from all over the globe have made their minds up that they\u2019re going to come through the Southern part of the border and come into New York City. And everyone is saying it\u2019s New York City\u2019s problem.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Every community in this city is going to be impacted. Now the twelve billion dollar deficit that we\u2019re going to have to cut \u2026 every service in the city is going to be impacted. All of us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">So I say to you as I turn it over to you: This is some, some of the most educated, some of the most knowledgeable, probably more of my commissioners and deputy commissioners and chiefs live in this community. So as you asked me a question about migrants, tell me what role you play. How many of you organized to stop what they\u2019re doing to us? How many of you were part of the movement to say: \u201dWe\u2019re seeing what this mayor is trying to do, and they\u2019re destroying New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">It\u2019s gonna come to your neighborhoods. All of us are going to be impacted by this. I said it last year when we had fifteen thousand; I\u2019m telling you now, with a hundred and ten thousand: The city we knew, we\u2019re about to lose.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">And we\u2019re all in this together, all of us. Staten Island said: \u201dSend \u2019em out to Manhattan.\u201d Manhattan is saying: \u201dSend \u2019em out to Queens.\u201d Queens is saying: \u201dSend \u2019em out to Brooklyn.\u201d No! It\u2019s not the game we can play. [<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/i\/broadcasts\/1BdGYyZNvgzGX\">Entire Video, hosted on Twitter<\/a>]<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gTUhMDoMTpA?si=vMiOjPrFQnnUtGaa\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&#8212;<\/div>\n<p>I can\u2019t resist reminding you again, as I <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/radio-derb\/open-borders-diction-rich-men-north-of-richmond-and-target-goes-woke-and-broke-etc#04\">did on August 18<\/a>, that this is the mayor who, just over a year ago\u2014August 19th 2022\u2014announced <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Lukathor\/status\/1699977666386948388?s=20\">Project Open Arms<\/a>. Quote from him back then: \u201dOur city has been, and will always be, a city of immigrants that welcomes newcomers with open arms\u201d [<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyc.gov\/office-of-the-mayor\/news\/607-22\/adams-administration-project-open-arms-comprehensive-support-plan-meet-educational\">Adams Administration Announces \u2019Project Open Arms,\u2019 Comprehensive Support Plan to Meet Educational Needs of Families Seeking Asylum,<\/a><\/em> NYC.gov, August 19, 2022].<\/p>\n<p>Last week, <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/radio-derb\/january-6th-sentencings-housing-illegals-worldwide-and-london-s-vibrant-caribbean-festival-etc#03\">I railed<\/a> at Mayor Adams\u2019 stupidity and innumeracy. So \u2026 is there anything new to say?<\/p>\n<p>Possibly. In that segment last week I noted that the stupidity and innumeracy is international, or at any rate transatlantic. The U.K. is well-stocked with clones of Mayor Adams.<\/p>\n<p>That brought an article in the <em>Aporia<\/em> online magazine back in February, posted by Andrew Collingwood, a British writer.<\/p>\n<p>Collingwood walks us through a very interesting history: the history of <em>dramatic under-estimation<\/em> by government authorities of the results\u2014that is, the number of people coming in\u2014the results of opening the immigration doors:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">For the last three-quarters of a century, British governments have consistently underestimated the likely scale of future immigration\u2014and to a risible degree. In 1948, amid accelerating changes to Britain\u2019s relationship with its empire, Parliament passed the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/British_Nationality_Act_1948\">British Nationality Act<\/a>, which put British subjects within the UK\u2019s Dominions and Commonwealth on equal footing to those in the British Isles. In other words, somebody born in Kingston, Jamaica had by law as much right to live and work in Britain as somebody born in Kingston-upon-Thames.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">It seems to have come as a shock to Members of Parliament that a person living in crushing third-world poverty might see value in moving to one of the richest and safest nations on earth. The Cabinet Papers, a collection of National Archive reviews of government documents, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/cabinetpapers\/themes\/origins-commonwealth-immigration.htm\">show<\/a> that, rather as with the small boat crossings of the Channel, what started as a trickle soon developed into a deluge. For the five years after the passing of the Act, \u201cimmigration from colonies remained at no more than 2,000 per year. This increased in 1954 and had reached over 135,000 by 1961.\u201d [Links in original.]<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aporiamagazine.com\/p\/why-cant-the-uk-stop-migration\">Why can\u2019t the UK stop migration?<\/a><\/em> by Andrew Collingwood, <em>Aporia<\/em> Magazine, February 16, 2023<\/p>\n<p>As we shall see, \u201dword gets around\u201d is one of the most powerful driving forces of migration.<\/p>\n<p>Collingwood then comments on some milestones in U.K. immigration policy.<\/p>\n<p>He pauses first at the year 2004, when a bunch of poor, mostly ex-Soviet countries were admitted to the European Union. Britain\u2019s government estimated that from five to thirteen thousand people a year from these countries would move to the U.K. The actual number was <em>seventy-two thousand<\/em> a year.<\/p>\n<p>Forward ten years to 2014, when <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/nyt-self-parody-watch-gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-version\">Romanians and Bulgarians<\/a> got <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/articles\/john-derbyshire-britain-s-latest-immigrant-invasion-is-white-bulgarian-perhaps-that-means-something-can-be-done-about-it\">migration rights<\/a>. Numbers from those countries, the relevant British government committee predicted, would be at most twenty thousand a year. By 2017 the <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/how-immigration-transformed-london-into-an-unbritish-city\">actual number<\/a> was running at <em>ninety thousand<\/em> a year.<\/p>\n<p>And so on. Yes, the stupidity is transatlantic, and goes back at least seventy-five years.<\/p>\n<p>I can now state with confidence <strong>Derbyshire\u2019s Law of Under-Estimation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>When, in America or Britain, some relaxation of immigration rules is proposed, the <em>ex post<\/em> increase in incoming numbers will be some large multiple of the <em>ex ante<\/em> estimates offered by the authorities.<\/p>\n<p>Human nature being what it regrettably is, these repeated under-estimations are commonly attributed by observers on the patriot side of the issue to malice. Those absurd under-estimates, people say, were <em>deliberate<\/em>, meant to bamboozle us so that the demographic revolution desired by the enemy could proceed.<\/p>\n<p>Certainly there was some of that. The great flood of immigrants to the U.K. during Tony Blair\u2019s administration (1997-2007), of which Collingwood\u2019s 2004 example was just one component, was indeed driven in part by malice. Andrew Neather, a former adviser and speech writer on Blair\u2019s team, <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/andrew-neather-and-the-1965-immigration-act-i-get-it\">spilled the beans <\/a>in October 2009 by telling Brits that the aim of Blair\u2019s immigration strategy, which he had helped to devise, was to \u201drub the Right\u2019s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date [<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-1249797\/Labour-threw-open-doors-mass-migration-secret-plot-make-multicultural-UK.html\">How Labour threw open doors to mass migration in secret plot to make a multicultural UK<\/a>, <\/em>by James Slack, <em>Daily Mail,<\/em> February 10,2010].<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Tony Blair adviser Andrew Neather&#39;s October 2009 revelation that Blair&#39;s strategy of massive non-white immigration was to &quot;rub the Right&#39;s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date&quot; is not a conspiracy THEORY, but an actual conspiracy. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/SmLhKlwxKF\">https:\/\/t.co\/SmLhKlwxKF<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BjfKGuTkUD\">pic.twitter.com\/BjfKGuTkUD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; VDARE (@vdare) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/vdare\/status\/1700291571403350247?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Undoubtedly there are similar motives in play among our own immigration boosters.<\/p>\n<p>I doubt that they fully explain Derbyshire\u2019s Law of Under-Estimation, though. Those examples from the 1940s and 1950s cited by Andrew Collingwood long predated modern anti-white Progressivism. Sentimentality about the British Empire was more of a factor; and it was widespread, not just the province of a malicious faction.<\/p>\n<p>So what <em>does<\/em> explain Derbyshire\u2019s Law and the quandary that Mayor Eric Adams finds himself in? I have been saying \u201dstupidity\u201d and \u201dinnumeracy,\u201d but I don\u2019t think those nouns capture all of the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Re-quote from Andrew Collingwood:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">It seems to have come as a shock to Members of Parliament that a person living in crushing Third-World poverty might see value in moving to one of the richest and safest nations on earth.<\/p>\n<p>There were not many <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/nobel-prize-supremo-uses-the-q-word-we-will-not-have-quotas-for-gender-or-ethnicity\">Nobel Prize <\/a>winners in the early-1950s British parliament (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nobelprize.org\/prizes\/literature\/1953\/summary\/\">just one<\/a> in the House of Commons, I think). There weren\u2019t many dunces either, though. Members of Parliament were ordinary citizens of average IQ\u2014probably a bit above average.<\/p>\n<p>As Collingwood tells us, the problem wasn\u2019t intelligence, it was <em>imagination<\/em>: the imagination to understand what drives a person to leave his familiar native place and go settle in a far country with different manners and language.<\/p>\n<p>Just pause to reflect for a moment on this question: How likely is it that New York Mayor Eric Adams is a man of much imagination?<\/p>\n<p>So no, it\u2019s not commonplace stupidity. It\u2019s more a partial blindness to things much outside one\u2019s own direct experience.<\/p>\n<p>What about innumeracy? That one I\u2019ll stick firmly with. Hunter-gatherers in the Amazon rain forest are said to count thus: one, two, many. A surprising number of citizens in the developed world have not advanced much further than that.<\/p>\n<p>So even if you remove agents of deliberate malice from the ranks of our immigration policy makers, you are still left with legions of Eric Adams types: people of average intelligence to whom the world beyond our shores is not all that different from the world within them, and is populated by a few thousand people here or there, some hundreds of whom might want to come live here.<\/p>\n<p>All right: I\u2019m a numbers geek; at any rate more numerate than the average. (This was written on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnderbyshire.com\/Opinions\/Diaries\/2019-05.html#02\">the 28,587th day of my life<\/a>. Next Tuesday is a prime number!)<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnderbyshire.com\/FamilyHistoryJD\/Documents\/Passports\/page.html\">knocked around the world<\/a> considerably and read a <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/radio-derb\/only-a-trillion-joe-meets-boris-mountain-madness-and-modern-minstrelsy-etc#03\">lot<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnderbyshire.com\/Opinions\/Culture\/authenticsf.html\">imaginative fiction<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So I\u2019m a snob; so sue me.<\/p>\n<p>But I was right about <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/moderate-black-mayor-eric-adams-plays-the-race-card\">\u201cmoderate\u201d Mayor Adams<\/a>; and I was right about <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/illegals-sleeping-in-the-streets-of-new-york-and-soon-in-central-park\">New York State\u2019s elected officials disgraceful silence<\/a> on consequences of the <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/articles\/happy-labor-day-from-vdare-com-biden-rush-ends-democrat-alliance-with-working-class\">Biden Rush:<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">As the stupidity and lawlessness mount, the silence of New York State\u2019s leading politicians becomes ever more deafening. Governor Hochul, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand: What have they had to say or propose about the issue? Nothing, zip, zilch, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnderbyshire.com\/Readings\/regretterien.html\"><em>rien<\/em><\/a>, <em>nichts<\/em>, <em>nada<\/em>, \u043d\u0438\u0447\u0435\u0432\u043e. Not a word.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Great leadership there in the Empire State. For God\u2019s sake, who votes for these worthless seat-warmers?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><em>John Derbyshire [<\/em><a href=\"mailto:gxnmvw7e@gmail.com\"><em>email him<\/em><\/a><em>] writes an <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnderbyshire.com\/Opinions\/page.html\"><em>incredible amount<\/em><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/articles\/algebra-and-american-civilization\"><em>on all sorts of subjects<\/em><\/a><em> for all kinds of outlets. (This <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/articles\/john-derbyshire-who-are-we-the-dissident-right\"><em>no longer includes<\/em><\/a><em> National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/posts\/rich-lowry-fires-john-derbyshire\"><em> fired him.<\/em><\/a><em>) He is the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/articles\/john-derbyshire-says-we-are-doomed-good-news-for-the-alternative-right\"><em>author<\/em><\/a><em> of<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Are-Doomed-Reclaiming-Conservative-Pessimism\/dp\/0307409589\/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;tag=vd0b-20&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325\">We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism<\/a><em> and several other <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/John-Derbyshire\/e\/B000AQ4V0O\/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;tag=vd0b-20&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325\"><em>books<\/em><\/a><em>. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lulu.com\/shop\/john-derbyshire\/from-the-dissident-right\/paperback\/product-21002437.html\">FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT<\/a><em> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/From-The-Dissident-Right-ebook\/dp\/B00CDSR7VC\/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;tag=vd0b-20\">also available in Kindle<\/a>) and <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/books\/new-john-derbyshire-anthology-from-the-dissident-right-ii\">FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.unz.com\/jderbyshire\/the-city-we-knew-were-about-to-lose-why-nyc-mayor-adams-was-so-wrong-about-immigrations-impact\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Aug 2022 NYC Mayor Adams unveiled Project Open Arms, when he welcomed immigrants from around the world. Now he has realized that maybe he made a mistake that could destroy the Big Apple as we know it. The thing is, if Adams had learned from recent history he might have avoided such making a calamitous error    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":273140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-european-migrant-crisis"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=273138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273139,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273138\/revisions\/273139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/273140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=273138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=273138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=273138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}