 Good morning everyone, my name is Anne Williams-Eisen, I'm the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services and we're here to talk about an issue this morning that really affects all of us as New Yorkers, the recent asylum seeker humanitarian crisis that we've been dealing with. But before I do that I'd like to acknowledge some of the folks that are in back of me. Today we have from the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manny Castro and his team, some members of his team. We have Zach Iskall, the Commissioner of New York City Emergency Management, Pastor Gilman Rose and Fernando Cabrera from the Mayor's Office of Faith-Based Initiative, Ephron Amid from the Mayor's Fund of New York City, our Chief Housing Officer Jessica Katz, Doctors Mitch Katz, Ted Long and Jonathan Jimenez from Health and Hospitals, Commissioner Jess Danhauser from ACS, Chancellor Banks from the Department of Education, Executive Director of Workforce and Talent Development, Abby Jo Siegel, Acting Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Park and others from her team, Commissioner Fred Kreitzman who leads our Mayor's Office of Mayor's Community Affairs Unit and the Council General of Mexico is here with us today Jorge Islas Lopez. Thank you all for being here. Can we give them all a round of applause please? When we talk about a whole government approach, this is what we mean. All these different organizations, all these different agencies came together in order to really deal with this. Many faith-based organizations, nonprofits, all volunteering and working to bring us today. As you see, the numbers are staggering. I sometimes think we keep on saying them so it's hard to get them and to realize them. Today we are going to have somebody who's going to try to put a face on this and really center us in this work. We know that the situation is not over. And so while today we're going to be talking about a path forward, it's acknowledging what we've done, it's seeing what we want to do now and then really looking towards the future. Now I'd like to hand it over to the Mayor to get us into the details. Thank you. Thank you so much. And having one of the, I think, two significant parts of the conversation today is to the right of me, my amazing Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs who was a former dreamer. And every time I'm with him and we talk about this and he relives the journey of coming here with his mom and he brings that passion to this entire issue. I really want to thank you, Commissioner, for just a personal touch that you're bringing to us. And to the left of me, I'm having an asylum seeker who's here, standing in City Hall, standing next to the Mayor of what I believe is the greatest city on the globe. And that's unimaginable that you can spend months making your way here to a country where others have taught you to decide, others did not give you the basic opportunity to participate in an American dream, but New York did. And the men and women behind me played that role, the full government approach. And I always remember when Deputy, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright took us to the Museum of the City of New York and we looked at those old headlines and articles from previous administrations. And every day I wake up in state, what do I want in that museum? And no matter what anyone has to say about this administration, this has been one of the most compassionate response to a humanitarian crisis. While we were keeping the lights on in this city, while we were making sure that the trains were running on time and dealing with all of the other crises that are series shut up, while we're dealing with so many other crises, they did the job. My Chancellor, we're up to 13,000 children had to come into our school system. Mayor Office of Immigrant Affairs opening herks almost over 100 locations we had to open. January 1st, 2022, we had, we had, no, I can't see her. When we, when we opened our herks, when we started this January 1st, 2022, I was saying we had 35,000 people in our care from all those years. In one year, one year, we had to address almost 45, only 37,000. We're now up to 50,000 that we have to manage, get care for, health care for. And no matter where I go, I'm hearing the same thing from the asylum seekers. We don't want to be a burden. We want to work. We want to be part of what this all that we heard about being in this country. And the national barriers that's preventing this is in a way, and all of this has, have, have, have fallen onto New York City. And we've done our job and we stood up and we're going to continue to stand up. And we're going to continue to pivot and shift each level as we move and deal with this unprecedented crisis that we are facing. And so today I'm proud to, to release the road forward, see, say it for me. Let me, let me, say it for me, you know that I could just sit back and let Siri say it. You know that? As technology in the 21st century, the road forward, a blueprint to address New York City's response to asylum-seeker crisis. And we're hoping that people read through this report and see what our response has been, what it's going to continue to be. And as we move forward in the next year to come, this is a, a serious crisis that we're facing in New York and I've stated it over and over again. And you know, we were happy to see that the city council heard our call of taking some of the discretionary dollars. They gave us a million out of a $4.2 billion potential call. I think they, they got to dig a little deeper. We believe that the federal government must, in an expectitious way, move for the $800 million that Senator Schumer and Congressman Jeffries and the New York delegation was able to get in the omnibus bill. We need it. We've got eight million thus far, but as you know, the numbers are high and we need so much more. And it's crucial that we find innovative ways of doing what I would continue to call the decompression strategy. That decompression strategy must take place in the country and it must take place throughout the entire state. All of us have an obligation and responsibility of dealing with the crisis that we are facing. I declared in October that this was a state of emergency and that we needed to respond effectively to this emergency as we navigated the already fiscal crisis that we were facing as the city. And this blueprint that we are releasing today highlights what we have accomplished since the crisis. And it is extremely impressive when you do an analysis of the movement and the compassion that we have shown. There's also going to show the changes we have put in place to move from an emergency response to a steady state of operation. And we have accomplished this over time, as well as what are our ask, clarity is crucial here. We are very specific on the things that we are asking for. We cannot do this alone. And we have been doing it alone thus far. And that must stop. And doing it alone, not doing it alone, is a federal response. We know we need a real immigration policies, real immigration policies. We know on Title 42 what's going to happen in the next few months of the response can be enormous. And it falls on New York. Other municipalities, asylum seekers pass through, but they end up here in our city. So the response must become on a federal level. We need a response on a state level. And guess what? We need a response on a city level. We need our local electors to play a more active role. And that active role can't be you don't want to shelter in your district. It can't be that you don't want to participate in this part. That's why we're elected. We're elected to solve these problems together. In order to move from an emergency response to a steady state, we will create an office of asylum seeker operation, which will oversee our efforts. This office is going to allow us to have our other agencies that have been focused on this to go back and continue to do, not to do roles that they're doing now, but to move forward with the obligations they have in the city. Now we already have the individuals in place that are doing this job. So it's not as though we have to find the individuals who do the job. They are doing the job. But we're going to put it under one office so they can focus on this. And all the agencies that have been currently doing it, they're going to now be able to not do just a do job, but to focus on their role as keeping the city operated. And instead of just having everyone come to the port authority as central location, the city will also create a new centralized 24-7 arrival center. So when we were shifting from the port authority, what we had there, we're going to have a 24-7 arrival center so we can process asylum seekers, can continue to receive assistance with basics needs like food and a safe place to sleep. Our goal is to help them to become self-sufficient as soon as possible. That is the number one goal we have to allow these asylum seekers to become self-sufficient. We will continue to work closely with our local partners, faith-based organizations and community organizations to provide options for our asylum seekers. I really want to thank Pastor Gilful Morose and his team on what they're doing with other faith-based leaders and institutions that have played a significant role in dealing with the asylum seekers' needs. We're going to move towards long-term housing and resettlement, including resettlement to pre-vetted cities and municipalities that welcome asylum seekers. There are many cities within the state and across the country that are standing wanting to help. We want to create the pathway to do that. And please don't ask me which cities because I don't need to run into the cities and stopping us from getting asylum seekers there. So we're not telling you. We're telling you when they get there, you know, because I know you enjoy pitted cities against cities. So we're not giving you that information. We also focus on training and workforce development. We know it takes a while before you get the actual ability to work, but nothing stops us from training right now. I know it's hard for a lot of people to believe, but there's a lot of job vacancies even in city government. There's job vacancies everywhere, you know, even among reporters. There are job vacancies. So we want to make sure that people are prepared to fill the jobs when they are able to get their work permits. And we want to help them with the aspects of getting the work permits in place. And we're going to system and managing the complicated immigration process. And the goal is to assist them in filling out the paperwork and to get to the point that they can apply for the necessary work permit that they deserve. Asylum seekers want to work, I hear that over and over again as I indicated, and we need to be there to help them over the hurdle. We want to ensure that they can take a self-sustained themselves. The Office of Asylum Seeker Operations will continue to mobilize all sectors of society to assist us, including the organizations and our business community and the philanthropic community that would like to play a role. Blueprint additionally lays out what we need from our partners on the state and federal levels. Again, specificity is something that I want to clearly lay out so people can know where the needs are. And we will continue to urgently call for national immigration reform, expedite right to work authorization for asylum seekers, federal and state emergency funding and operational resources, and much more. Listen, this crisis is not a New York crisis. It's a United States crisis. And it's time for our national government to play the role. We are clear that we have to lay out the pathway forward for the city, and that is what this report is doing. This, the road forward is this is our blueprint. This is our response to this crisis. What we have done, what we're doing and what we need help to continue the job that we're doing. I want to thank all of my agency heads and employees and brokers and staffers who have been up late nights and who have just really dedicated themselves because we don't see these families and individuals as numbers. We see them as individuals, one of them that stand here today. And we're proud that they want to be part of the American experience. Thank you, Mayor Adams. Also with us today that I didn't mention was Commissioner of International Affairs, Ed Mermestine. Also, two people who have done so much work on this plan and in this area. Chief of Staff Camille Varlich, did I do it best? I always do the V, the VS, the CVS, CJV. And first Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, who's over there. There she is. Okay, next, speaking of people who stay up day and night and those first couple of days of when the buses first started coming, Mayor, I think Manny, you were at Port Authority for, I don't know, 16 hour days. And I was like, where's Manny's at Port Authority? The love that you've shown, the leadership you've shown. You're a new commissioner, so it wasn't easy. You had all of two minutes to kind of get up to speed. I'm so appreciative of all that I've learned for you, of how proud you've made this administration. So now I'd like to bring you up to the podium, please, Manny. Good morning, everyone. My name is Manuel Gastro, the commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs. Today I'm going to share some words in Spanish. But before that, I want to sincerely thank Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor and William Seism for leading us through this crisis. They are exactly the leaders we needed in this moment. And so I want to thank you for everything that you've done in support of our work. I want to thank everyone here today, Dr. Long, Sac Isco, Molly Parks. I wish I can shout out every single person here, because you've all had a big part in responding to this challenge. And of course, as Mayor Adams stated, I want to thank the thousands of city employees and our partners for coming together in support of asylum seekers with such great compassion and care. I speak with asylum seekers often, and they share with me often how different it has been for them here in New York City compared to all the countries. Many have traveled through 10 plus countries to get here and through the different states and regions in the United States. And so I think this is something we have to be proud of. What this team has accomplished in such a short amount of time is monumental. But feats like these don't happen on their own, which is why we're standing here with every single member in our leadership that has contributed to this effort. It has taken great leadership and individuals committed to meeting and uphold the values of our city and something that is ultimately bigger than ourselves. And so this is a testament to the team that Mayor Adams has built. Mayor, you have been there from the beginning, welcoming asylum seekers at Port Authority early on. No other mayor or national leader in this country has done something like this. Welcome families, embracing them, embracing children as they arrive. You visited the US-Mexico border to highlight the impact of this situation on asylum seekers crossing the border in localities. And if you can recall, the idea for this blueprint came about as we were at the US-Mexico border observing what was happening. And throughout these many months, you've taken great effort and time to meet and speak with and learn from asylum seekers and about their journey in search for the American dream. And I have to say, Mayor Adams, not only are asylum seekers appreciative, but all the immigrant community that is watching you engage in this matter feels that they matter to you. No matter whether they recently arrived or they've arrived decades ago or generations ago, they know that you care. And so I want to thank you for your leadership and for showing us that we need to turn a challenge in a difficult situation into purpose. So thank you, Mayor Adams, for leading us in that effort. So now I want to share a few words in Spanish about our announcement today. Durante el año pasado, la Ciudad de Nueva York se enfrentó a una crisis humanitaria sin precedente, cobrocada por fuerzas globales. Miles de solicitantes de asilo han oído de sus países de origen. Muchos han venido a la gran manzana. Nuestras agencias de la ciudad y grupos comunitarios y todos los New Yorkinos han respondido rápidamente. Movimiento, cielo y tierra para ayudar a los migrantes recién llegados a nuestra ciudad. Abrimos 92 nuevos albergues, siete centros de ayuda humanitaria. Y hemos visto un aumento de 50 por ciento en nuestros albergues. Sorry, I lost my face here. Más de 49,000 solicitantes de asilo han pasado por nuestra, por nuestro sistema. Y más de 30,000 están aún en nuestro cuidado. Y hemos invertido más de 650 millones en este esfuerzo. Hoy el alcalde y su administración anuncian el lanzamiento del plan para abordar la crisis de los solicitantes de asilo de la Ciudad de Nueva York. Estamos creando una oficina de operaciones que se encargará del apoyo de los solicitantes y permitirá que los agencias de la ciudad vuelvan a enfocarse en sus misiones principales. La ciudad también creará un nuevo centro de llamadas de llegadas que centralizar nuestra actividades y estará abierto 24 horas, siete días a la semana. Donde los solicitantes de asilo pueden continuar recibiendo asistencia con sus necesidades. También seguiremos luchando por una reforma migratoria que expida rápidamente los permisos de trabajo. Seguiremos solicitando ayuda económica para nuestra ciudad de parte del gobierno federal y estatal ya que este esfuerzo tiene que ser un esfuerzo compartido. Thank you so much. Don't go too far, Manny. You'll often hear us talk about folks with lived experience and how much it is important to us as an administration. Many of us bring our lived experience to this work and it's not something we try to hide. It's actually something that we try to center in our policies and our programs and in our planning. Today we'd like to have Abraham talk to us a little bit and share with us his story as it informs the work that we do moving forward. Manny and Abraham. I'm going to translate this. Good morning. My name is Abraham and I am from Venezuela. I want to thank God for allowing me to be here and share part of my experience with you. Firstly, I want to thank God for allowing me to be here today and share some of my story with you. I want to first thank the mayor, the commissioner and to the city for all the support that you have given me and all the asylum seekers in New York City today. I want to make an important emphasis that one of the biggest difficulties of this trip was having the opportunity to cross Panama. One of the most impactful parts of my journey was having to cross the jungle in order to get here. I had the opportunity to go through the river and through difficult scenarios but I had to cross through the river and through so much, but I want to thank God for taking me on this journey and allowing me to get here safely. Now, all I want to ask is for the federal government to speed up the asylum process so that we can finally settle here. This is because as immigrants, we too want to contribute to back to the city and to the United States of America. And to conclude my remarks, I want to send a message to all the asylum seekers throughout the city to keep calm and be respectful and continue moving forward because the city is doing everything possible to make sure that you have the support that you need. Thank you so much. May God bless you. We will let them finish. OK, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your opinion. Thank you for sharing your opinion and disrespecting everyone that's standing here. I hope your children get better managing what you're showing. Take care. We are doing a complete assessment of all of our volunteers. We want to thank all of them. Some of them I saw when I was at the Port Authority, the days that I visited. We want to thank them. We want to make sure as we open up the new center, the new location that we do it in organized fashion to make sure we can continue to have those who want to volunteer doing it in a very organized way. Because we're shifting from the response of dealing with that emergency influx to a very organized way. And we're doing an assessment of everyone to make that determination. You know, Kate, you know, OK, OK, hold on, hold on, OK. The definition of on and off topic is determined by Kate. Not that you feel is on or off. We're going to do off topic. If she says this is not on topic, Kate makes that decision. Thank you so much, Kate. Some of these groups that wanted to. What message does it send to kind of they feel pushed aside to do that when you're also kind of calling on people to be more involved? Well, you know, I think the hallmark of this administration of those who you have covered me know I believe in doing things in a very structured and organized way. That is just how I operate. As we stated, we're going to do we're going to open a location. We're going to let everyone know where the location is. And we're going to make a determination of the structured way to make sure the resources that people want to bring is done in an already fashion. I don't do things in a disorganized way. We will make sure all those who want to assist their silent seekers get an opportunity to do so. Yes, you wanted to revisit the right to shelter. So as he says, it really is to migrants. Do you still want to do that? And for Abraham, can you discuss the basis for your asylum? I don't want him going into the basis of his asylum. You know, that's a technical issue. And I don't want to do anything that's going to infringe on that. You know, this is a humanitarian crisis. Part of the right to shelter states that if you come in at a certain hour, you have to be out at a certain hour. When that was created, no one thought we would get 800 people in one day. No one thought that in one week we would get a 3,000 people. And so we see this as a humanitarian crisis. And that's how we treat it as a humanitarian crisis. But no family had to sleep on the streets because we did not respond to the American humanitarian crisis that we've witnessed. No, we want aid from the state, the federal and local state, federal and local. You know, I want to I want to be clear of that because we often talk about what we need from the federal and the state, but we also need local participation. We want that and we're going to continue to ask for that. But we have to put in place moving from the Port Authority to a permanent place that we could operate and put in place a permanent office that can manage this so I can allow these commissioners and others to not have these dual roles that they are carrying out now, that they can refocus their attention on the primary roles they have and have someone oversee this entire operation. I am concerned about what's going to happen when the board is reopened. New York City is still a destination. There's still a fake Facebook pages in countries that have stayed and come to New York. So I am concerned and so we need to be prepared for whatever is in the future. The the deputy mayor just shared with me, she's she's planning on. We'll announce exactly when it's open. We will make sure that everyone knows ahead of time and every job that's available of everything from, you know, the shortage in restaurant employees. There's a real shortage in restaurant employees. I hear it all the time of those who can get their commercial drivers license. You know, we have a shortage in truck operators. We have a shortage and you name the field when I sit down with the with the leaders of the business community all over the city. In fact, all over the globe, people are saying they have a shortage of workers. So we want to identify the areas that are in higher demand with our partnerships and business and we're going to connect people with those jobs that available and start giving them the training now. How are you? Well, it was working when you look at the volume. As I stated, I think we're over where we're either at 50,000. Added on to the already 35,000. The response has been just truly remarkable because you're not feeling it, you know, every day as we saw in other cities. We were in El Paso. People were sleeping in the airports. They were sleeping on the streets. They were sleeping around churches. We're not seeing that response here based on the way we we responded. And our numbers are far more than there. We're going to identify the right person, right person. That's the role of the deputy mayor. She's going to identify the right person. We already have employees who are doing the work now of the individual that the deputy mayor determines will now coordinate the entire effort instead of having to be coordinated through several different agencies. And I trust the ability to pick the right person for the job. Oh, yeah, Mr. Mayor, you talked about the officials and local officials cooperate with you as far as locating shelter. So how where would they be and where do you want to put them? And how would they operate? Yeah, we do know we get a lot of calls from our local electives who say that, you know, they don't want to shelter in their location. And we don't have that option. We don't have the option wherever we can find a space. We've opened a number of emergency hotels, I believe 90 over 90. Ninety four emergency hotels, a number of her perks as well. And, you know, everyone has not been in approval of the locations that we've been opening, but we don't have an opportunity to decide. And we're going to continue to try to find a space that's that's available. And we need help from our local electives. They should be telling us here's a location that you could utilize instead of saying they don't want it in their districts. Mr. Mayor, you said that you want money from the city, the state and the federal government to pay for these programs. But your budget director yesterday told the city council was unlikely that the federal government was going to come through. So my question to you is sort of twofold. Where will the money come from? Are you asking more money from the governor and the state legislature? But also, since the city is going to have to pay a bigger amount of the share of the cost of these programs, will other city services have to be cut in order for the city to afford to deal with the asylum crisis? You know, as Jacques has laid out, you know, we spent over 650 million, I think, six hundred forty six hundred fifty four million dollars from from July to February. When you look at that number, that's an astronomical number. It's estimated that this fiscal year next is going to be four point two billion dollars. Those are real numbers. And I said this before, and I'm going to say it again, every service in the city is going to be impacted. Every service in the city is going to be impacted. Each day we're turning to poor authority in search of services. Sometimes they go back and help. And is that and that's the purpose of identifying one location, one location, one location, making sure they have one location. And there's a natural process of knowing where to go. So we're going to make sure that poor authority staff is aware of, you know, for the first day or so, we will have our teams there. We direct in them. But as long as the poor authority officials can tell people, give them a handout, give them a pamphlet and say, this is the new location. It would be a smooth, organized transition. Yep, yep, yep, you can answer. That's a good question. That's exactly the intention of this blueprint. We are pivoting to supporting asylum seekers to apply for not just a work permit, but for also there are asylum claims. And if I can speak to what's happening at the Port Authority and with nonprofit organizations, we've contracted with a number of partner nonprofit organizations. Many of them are listed in the back of this blueprint. You can take a look at that and our plan with this blueprint moving forward would allow us to contract with even more nonprofit partners that will provide exactly the support and assessment as to how many people are applying. Oh, yes. Yes. People have been and we don't have that specific number, but not enough. We want to scale this so that as many people apply and we will get some information to you. But the intention of this blueprint is to scale. And I question there are many nonprofit organizations that are assistant people were filling out the paperwork. I was outing Queens two weeks ago on Saturday and they are sitting down having volunteers that are coming in paralegal attorneys and they are assistant people to fill out that paper paperwork because it could be extremely complicated, particularly if English is not your language of birth or knowledge. And so there's a large number of volunteer organizations that are participating and allowing people none of that this this point or showing them how to fill out those those those paperwork. So we're going to continue to partner with them. Well, some of the services that we are going to provide are coordinating pre-existing services under one entity and one of the partnerships we're doing in Sullivan County that is going to do give people the training of some of the jobs that are available. So when you look at some of these services that we're providing, it's not coming with a high price tag. It is utilizing pre-existing services that we have, but we are organizing them in the fashion that we can produce a better product product. There's going to be a dollar amount that's attached, but it is a greater investment to get people self-sufficient. That's what we want. This investment is to get people self-sufficient as they want to be and as the city needs to be. Are these other municipalities volunteering to work with you? And I was curious if you had a number or a share and reduce the population of the South. Here's your question. That's a good question. The first question is that the cities we are dealing with are cities that are saying they want to step up and help. You know, there are cities in the state and across the country that they want to play their role. They've realized that this is a national problem. And many of them understand that they too came from somewhere. And so that's the relationship that we are developing. And when you talk about the numbers, as I stated, I believe New York is going to continue to get the influx in a bulk of asylum seekers. And so the more people we can show how to stabilize in other parts of the country of the better it is for us to be able to handle the influx that we have. So I don't have a magical number out of the 50,000 that we receive. There's no magical number that I can point to. But we want to make sure people know that there are other places in the country where they can have the quality of life that they deserve. Mr. Mary, before you mentioned the city council, the allocation that they did last week, I believe it was 1.2 million from them and then another 1 million from nonprofit groups or philanthropy is rather. So, you know, what would you like to see? You said you wanted to see more from them. Is there like a figure in mind? And do you think they haven't been doing enough in general to help you with the crisis? Well, I think that if you if you when I say you, I'm saying those of us who cover this, those of you who cover the story, if you do an analysis of the severity of this crisis, you we have to ask ourselves have they amplified their voices to Washington, D.C. I believe it was not until late last year that the first letter was actually put out. It wasn't until late last year before the first tweet. I mean, I mean, I mean, you can tweet from your shower. You know, I mean, so I mean, this is a this was probably the top crises in our city. There should have been a response from our local electors. They should have been lobbying government to say this is unfair to New York because it's unfair to our constituency. As Marsha asked the question, every service is going to be impacted. Now, if something is happening in our city where every service is impacted, shouldn't the individuals that are responsible for delivery of services to their constituency, should they be standing up and saying that, hey, this is impacting every service? We didn't see that. And we can't we should not go into 2023 with the same that's the mayor's problem. No, this is all of our problem because it impacts the Department of Education when you get 13,000 children, it impacts. So someone should have been saying to state head, we need more money. Someone should be saying to the federal government, we need more money. We were not hearing that. That's what I need. I need them to match the urgency of the moment that we are facing. So you made it clear you want money from Washington. I mean, when we're talking about actual immigration reform, which you've also talked about, what are you specifically asking the Biden administration for anything? I mean, just yesterday, the Times reported that they're considering reviving the practice of detaining migrant families across the border. Is that something that you would like to see in a way that it would stop people coming to New York City? Not very clear throughout the year. There's three things we need. We need financial support. They FEMA must come up with how they want to distribute the $800 million that Senator Schumer and King Jeffries in a New York delegation fought for. That is taking far too long. We have to get that done. Let's get the money flowing. Number two, there needs to be an individual who is dedicated to do the decompression strategy for the federal government. So we should be at these entry points El Paso, Brownsville, Texas and others to organize a real decompression strategy across the entire country. One person should we should be looking at of it is often stated that is the role of the VP. That's too much in her portfolio to be focused on just doing that decompression strategy. If not, the decompression strategy can't be New York City. And that's what we have basically a witness. And lastly, we need real immigration reform. You know, this is a real problem that we have to address. And we need real immigration reform. What the president is going to do with families that that is the role of the White House. That is not something that I'm responsible for saying. OK, let's do a few off topic. Thank you. Thank you. Re-election, you've been very critical. We've seen no money from Washington and no no relent. No, I think through the contrary. And again, those who cover me and know me know that I'm going to speak on behalf of the people of the city, no matter what panel I am on. And, you know, being the president comes with a menu of items. It doesn't mean there's not going to be an item on that menu that I dislike. I dislike what we're doing around the asylum seekers. But I always say that I believe the mayor, the president is just a blue collar mayor, a president. I'm a blue collar mayor. I like his policies. I think he's good for the country. And it doesn't mean I'm going to agree with him 100 percent on everything. I don't agree with myself all the time, so I'm not going to agree with someone else all the time. I think that he's moving the country in the right direction. And I'm happy to be part of his his panel. And I'm glad he thought enough of New York City and what I'm doing around public safety, what I'm doing around navigating this during these difficult time. You know, I know it's hard for people to realize, but our bond rating was increased because of how I'm handling the fiscal responsibility of the city. And I think the president sees something in what I'm doing in New York. And for him to ask me to join his his his panel, I'm happy to do it. I'm looking forward to it. To say to somebody, take your mask off, two things. One is that say, and if somebody is a criminal, they're going to really want to comply or they're going to stab you with their knife. Or if you're immunocompromised, is it a safety thing? So there's two aspects of this. And is this like an admission that the cops just came and all these kinds of crimes? Well, OK, a couple of things. I was really surprised. I don't know. Was that your story, Mike? Or was that Chris's story? You know, I don't know whose story was about the mask. I think it was Chris. That was you. OK. Second, right, right, right, right, right, right. You know, and it's not it's not lost on me. It's not lost on me that I don't see a mask on any of you. It's not lost on me. And I mean, you know, there's sometimes in the city that no matter you lose your credibility, that no matter what someone does, you criticize it anyway. To have a doctor state that to remove your mask for six seconds is, you know, is you causing a health crisis. I mean, you lose your credibility. You you I would not get on a plane at JFK if everyone could get on without them showing their faces so that the the TSA and others will have a visual of that. This is a responsible way to ensure that we deal with those who are wearing these masks because they are committing crimes. And so when you say that, does this mean that we cannot solve the crime? We have a record number of of of crimes that we're solving. What it does is it allows us to use the video surveillance and technology to identify the person faster. We're solving these cases because there are ways our detectives are doing that. Yes. And sometimes they're a little bit crazy. So if they walk in and the doctor says, you got to take off your mask. Doesn't that exacerbate their aggressiveness and doesn't it cause a bigger problem for the guy who's making the demand? And could that cause more bloodshed, more openness? We're not asking the bodega to tell the person when they walk in, hey, so you have to take off your mask. There's a sign at the door that the Bodega Association helped us create. Let's be clear on that. The Bodega Association helped us create a sign that says, please, upon entering, remove your mask and you can put it back on. But think about this for a moment. As I looked at some of the videos, I looked at about 30 videos of people who committed the robberies in in Canada, smoke shops and in bodegas. And each one of those videos, you saw the person inside walking around with his mask on. And if you did a real analysis of it, you see that, hey, this guy's up to something. So if you're refusing to remove your mask, don't confront the person. But now you're saying, wait a minute, now let me pay attention to this person that is in the store, lingering around with the mask. We've got we've got so used to the mask that we don't realize there's a large volume of people that are wearing it, not because of covid, because they're criminals. Somebody to remove the mask for a minute is like a deterrent because you're basically saying to the person, we're going to catch your face now. So maybe you shouldn't do that evil thing that you wanted to do. No, it's not so much as a deterrent. When you are able to get two things, Marsha, that's very important here as we do an analysis of these crimes. They're repeated offenders. And by the time we catch that one person, they did seven other robberies. And we're able to identify their face fast enough. We're able to broadcast it on TV. We're able to use our crime stoppers. We're able to like we got a tip the other day from the person who did the rape. They said we recognize the person and we identified them not having the video surveillance. We're allowing the repeated offenders to continue until we catch them. You know, you take if you take the mask out of the equation and you're able to identify the face of the person. Number one, you catch them faster. Number two, you're able to broadcast it out because we're building a network out with our bodegas that we're going to be able to shoot out to them if there is a pattern somewhere. So we are really involving people in the crime fighting tactic. Masks have done a great job in preventing COVID. Now we must do a great job in preventing crimes. So on that, if somebody's walk around the store like you described with the mask on, they haven't taken it off and looked suspicious. What is the the store then supposed to do? Just one quick one after that. Well, first of all, he should be aware of what's happening because as I analyze the videos with Chief Magery and his team, you you could almost analyze the video videos that I looked at. Like I said, it was a substantial number. And there's this pattern of behavior inside the store. You know, he may have some of these places have they have a security guard there. They have a secondhand person that's in the establishment. You should become aware and conscious of this person that's in your store. The more knowledge you have beforehand, you should have a direct connection to your local community affairs officer. If you feel unsafe, you can report what the possibility could. We're partnering with the Boldegas Associations. People who are immunocompromised, I mean, there's a fear those folks have. You know, if I take it off for just a little, they might make things worse. Like, how do you address that? Like, is there a way the city can address this and kind of your messaging that you think could be helpful? Listen, if someone I'm a strong believer, I'm not going to interpret the fear of someone because fear is is personalized to who you are and how you're feeling. If someone is immune compromise and they believe that if I take my mask off for three seconds, that I may catch something. I got to respect that. This is a broader conversation of part of our public safety plan. And it's really commendable from chief imagery to understand and see the see the connection of those who are wearing a mask and those who are committing crimes. And it is about giving these store owners the additional tools. This is not a there's not a one tool to safety. This is an additional tool that he or she will have if a person is not complying with the basic rule of when you come in, remove your mask upon entry. This is a basic understanding. Now, don't don't get yourself that everyone that's wearing a mask is feel the immune compromise. Don't don't don't believe that hustle, you know, if if if I'm a bodega owner, three a.m. in the morning, someone walks in after they see the sign that says, please remove your mask upon entry and they're lingering around the store like many of these guys have been doing. I want to be knowledgeable that, hey, this is the person I need to keep my eye on. He's he's the he's a quarterback and whatever position on the field he wants me to play to continue to move our country forward. I'm willing to do so, you know, in no way am I going to neglect my responsibility as a city. And, you know, no matter what you write, there's no one in here that is not going to say that I'm one of the hardest probably LaGuardia is the other mayor that worked as hard as I am, you know. So I'm going to continue to do my obligation as the mayor. But our country need real leadership. And I just think the president provides that and I want to make sure that whatever he wherever he needs me and however he needs me, I'm willing to do so. That may reduce the number of people coming into the store. So does it give them less business? Are we caving into the criminal and are we really throwing the community under the bus because they don't have the freedom to come and go in and out of the store when they want? It depends on the store, depends on the store. And if we're talking about, you know, a local bodega, you don't have to bus people in and out. If if I'm in a high end jewelry store. Having the two of seeing someone at my door, no matter who they are. And if they're not willing to comply with the mask, I'm not buzzing you in, you know. And I should make the decision if I want to buzz you in or not. You know, here's this basic rule that I'm asking you. You can put your mask back on. But I think that jewelry store operator that high end Pocky book store that high end watch store. If someone comes to your door and here's a basic rule, I'm asking you as you enter so we can properly identify who you are. That my my spider senses will go up if you're telling me, no, I'm not willing to show you who I am. I think that jewelry store should have the right to say based on my safety protocols calls, I am not going to buzz you into my in my store, you know, and it's not a certain it's not a surrender. It is using smart practices. You the reason many of these stores put in place video surveillance. So something happens as a deterrence. And if something happens, you could identify the person that carried out the action, you know, to not respect the right to allow people in who are willing to comply with your basic request. I think a shop owner is being smart by making that decision.