New York City mayor wants illegal immigrants to be lifeguards because they are "excellent swimmers"

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is floating the idea of ​​recently arrived immigrants becoming lifeguards for the city's public pools, declaring them “excellent swimmers.”

During a press conference Tuesday, Adams complained that the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who have arrived in New York City in recent years remain ineligible to work and said he would instead like to see them offered jobs as lifeguards at the city's public pools and beaches because they are “excellent swimmers.”

“How do we have a large body of people that are in our city, our country, that are excellent swimmers and at the same time we need lifeguards, and the only obstacle is that we won’t give them the right to work to become a lifeguard?” the mayor asked.

“If we had a plan that said, ‘If there was a shortage of food service workers and those who fit that criteria, we’re going to expedite you,’ if you have experience that you are a nurse and we have nursing shortage, we would expedite you,” he explained.

“It’s the same for lifeguards. We have all these eligible people waiting to work, with the skills we need to do the jobs, but we are unable to allow them to work because bureaucracy is in the way.”

Adams has long been a proponent of using the southern border as a simple checkpoint where migrants can pass on work permits into the United States for jobs.

Last October, while traveling in Latin America, Adams said that the world's migrants deserve a “right to work” in the United States, regardless of the impact mass immigration has on Americans’ job prospects and wages.

“When you look at Colombia, they have really shown how to absorb people into their societies, and one of the most important ways to do that is to allow people to work,” Adams said. “Nothing is more humane and more American than your right to work, and we believe it's a right we should extend.”

NYC Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi added some perspective to the city lifeguard shortage, saying 560 first-time lifeguards passed the “rigorous” exam for positions for this summer and that by comparison, only 364 applicants passed last year.

Adams’ mayoral administration has continued to search for new lifeguards during the past several years, raising the hourly wage to $22 and offering $1,000 signing bonuses for people willing to remain on duty during the peak season.

While the city now has 560 first-time lifeguards, there are an estimated 1,500 needed to patrol the 14 miles of open coastlines and public pools in the large NYC metropolitan area.