NYC Mayor Eric Adams was expected to take a trip to the US southern border last weekend that was canceled due to looming concerns about a particular city’s crime rates.
He first announced the planned trip in a radio appearance last Friday, saying he was going to the border the next day to meet with “national immigrant leaders” about issues pertaining to the NYC’s influx of migrants.
However, on Saturday afternoon, his office said the trip had been canceled due to unspecified “safety concerns at one of the cities we were going to in Mexico flagged by the US Department of State.”
Following several days of minimal explanations from Adams’ administration, his office revealed on Tuesday that concerns about gang violence in Mexico prompted the Mayor to call off the trip.
In a press briefing held that afternoon, Adams said the Mexican city he was concerned about is Reynosa, which is located near the Texas border. He told reporters that he decided to cancel the trip to Reynosa after US State Department officials contacted members of his security detail Friday to warn him that they were “concerned about this trip.”
Adams said he was invited to go to Reynosa by Norma Pimentel, the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which helps migrants seeking asylum in the US. The Mayor said Pimentel “wanted us to come down and see what they were doing.”
“That city is going through some serious violence right now with gangs,” Adams said on Tuesday after noting that Reynosa’s mayor has recently fielded threats.
The State Department has not yet publicly addressed the topic, but an entry published on its website in August 2023 cautions Americans against traveling in Tamaulipas state, which includes Reynosa, due to “organized crime activity” sustained by “heavily armed members of criminal groups.”
Mayor Adams, who has recently attracted attention from federal prosecutors regarding the investigation into his 2021 campaign finances and uncommonly regular trips to Turkey, stated in Tuesday’s briefing that it is not the first time the State Department has contacted him about traveling.
Adams was expected to visit other cities on the trip as well, including some on the US side of the border.
“We wish we had time to shift things around, but the time was not there,” he said when asked why he didn’t just omit the Reynosa stop from the trip.
