‘Excellent swimmers’: New York mayor says migrants can fix lifeguard shortage

Community leaders denounce Eric Adams’s comments as racist as mayor doubles down and says ‘word police’ out to get him

The New York mayor, Eric Adams, is facing pushback for bizarrely conflating two issues: a shortage of lifeguards on city beaches as the summer approaches and a surge in the the city’s population of undocumented people.

In his weekly news conference, the mayor was asked what he planned to do about New York City’s lifeguard shortage and pivoted to the need for a plan to fill jobs that are in high demand with asylum seekers.