NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Hochul Won’t Remove Adams, AG James Targets E-Cigarette Companies and Resettlement Agencies Lost in Limbo

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

We discuss Gov. Hochul’s decision to keep Mayor Adams in office. Plus, New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed a federal lawsuit against e-cigarette companies that are targeting young people. And finally, refugees in upstate New York are in limbo because of a Trump administration order for resettlement agencies to stop services.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jenei Pierre. Governor Kathy Hogle will not remove New York City Mayor Eric Adams from office. That's according to sources familiar with her decision. As we know, Adams has been facing federal corruption charges since last year, but the Trump administration's Department of Justice recently moved to have prosecutors drop the case against him. That has led to concerns from critics that Adams would be beholden to the Trump administration, and a number of his fellow Democrats have called for him to step down.

Joining me to talk more about the governor's decision is Maya Hibbitt, editor of WMYC's People and Power Desk. All right, Maya, so before we start, we know that the governor is the only official with the power to remove a sitting mayor. Does Hogle's decision not to remove Adams come as a surprise at all? Well, if you'd asked me it exactly this time a week ago, I would have said no. But late last Thursday night, Hockel was on TV and she was asked about removing Adams and she did not rule it out in the way she had been in recent weeks and months since his indictment in the first place. And that was a huge departure from her previous stance. And so people started to think maybe she'll do it. On Tuesday this week, she called some other political leaders. like the New York City Council Speaker, Adrian Adams, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and several other people to her office. And she said she was hearing them out and talking about her options and considering it really seriously. After that happened, people thought she might really do it. And today's news was sort of resetting us to where we were before.

You talked about Hokal, you know, weighing her options here. And instead of forcing Mayor Adams out of office, Hokel is planning to create some new legal limits on the mayor's power. What can you tell us about that? As we're speaking, there are a lot of details that are yet to come. So we don't know all of what she's planning to do, but it would require some state level and probably city level legislation that the governor can't exactly introduce herself, but she can have her allies in legislative bodies, bring these bills forward. And what she wants to do is create a new inspector general who would have oversight of the mayor's office. So it would essentially give all.

Albany more supervision of the New York City mayor. Now, as I mentioned at the top, the DOJ has moved to have prosecutors drop the case against Mayor Adams. Where does that stand right now? I know that he had a court hearing this week. Yeah, so he had a court hearing on Wednesday afternoon. And Judge Dale Ho, who's been presiding over Adams case this whole time, said that he was not going to, quote, shoot from the hip. And he didn't want to rule from the bench on the matter. He brought Adams and he brought the prosecutors in the case who ordered the dismissal motion in to talk about why.

And Emil Beauvais, the DOJ official who requested that this case be dismissed, was maintaining that it was for totally normal above board legal reasons. But as we've seen in the DOJ's letters and memos about the case, they've often cited political rationale instead of the typical legal arguments. That's WMYC editor Maya Hibbitt, and we should also note Mayor Adams still maintains his innocence. In other local news, New York State Attorney General Letitia James is going after e-cigarette companies that are, as she says, targeting young people with flavors like blue-rest, slushy, and sour watermelon patch. The AG filed a federal lawsuit Thursday. James says the companies are illegally marketing and selling flavored vapes to New Yorkers in violation of local, state, and food. federal laws. The lawsuit is seeking significant damages that the AG's office says could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars. She wants the companies to be required to pay into a special fund

to address youth vaping. There was no immediate comment from the e-cigarette companies. President Trump's order on refugees has resettlement agency scrambling upstate. More on that after the break. This is NYC now. Refugees in New York are in limbo because of a Trump administration order for resettlement agencies to immediately stop services. WMYC's Jimmy Vilkind has more. Going straight. On the way down there. All the way down? Yeah, okay. Each week, retired teacher Anthony Bango loads his Subaru with boxes of groceries. He picks up a refugee from Myanmar named Po Soe, who came to the U.S. in 2014. Anthony has become his mentor over the last decade. The two head off to meet some of the newest residents of these old upstate river six.

We have some food for you. Oh, okay, thank you. You're welcome. We're in the front of your house. We'll be right in. Yes, okay. All right, bye. Bye.

Today it's another refugee family from Myanmar that arrived a few weeks ago. The local office of the nonprofit U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immig or U.S.CRI is helping them get on their feet before they start looking for work. Hello. How are you? Thank you so much. You're welcome. In many upstate New York cities, a slow but deliberate process of resettlement has stabilized neighborhoods and provided new workers.

18,000 people have been resettled in Utico over the past four decades. But now, all this work is in peril. Days after taking office, President Trump froze funding for new refugees. The administration ordered agencies like USCRI to stop their work on federal contracts. Bango thinks it's a terrible move. I'm sure that the powers that be, most of them don't have a clue what's going on with these kids. U.S. CRA and other resettlement agencies across the state have laid off their staff and scrambled to raise donations. They usually spend around $1,700 to cover each refugee's costs for the first few months.

That funding is now cut off. More than a thousand newcomers in Albany, Utica, and Buffalo are affected. I was shocked because that was a step beyond what we had all anticipated. Jennifer Rizzo Choi leads the International Institute of Buffalo. That city gained population in the last decade as it welcomed thousands of refugees. She says there's a big difference between people who illegally cross the southern border to claim asylum and refugees who often wait overseas for years. So it is a very secure and vetted population that is coming in.

And it has unfortunately been. conflated with the migrant numbers and the crisis at the border that has continued to dominate the headlines over the last few years. The White House says the country has been, quote, inundated with immigrants and now lacks the ability to absorb more refugees in a manner that doesn't take resources from Americans or compromised security. At the Albany Office of USCRI, the funding freeze was a punch in the gut. The hallway is lined with boxes of diapers, cleaning supplies, and other household essential.

Director David Sussman says it's all come in since the order, which forced him to lay off seven workers. Distribution falls to volunteers. So we're just in a rapid response mode. We hope those staff will be able to be rehired, but now we're using their desk spaces for the items that are donated. Around the corner, dozens of people from different countries attend an orientation session. Thursday's topic is personal finance. with English translated into Arabic, Burmese, and the Afghan language Dari. See what you have left over at the end, and that's what you can see.

A 30-year-old Burmese woman named Kitar sits in the middle of the room. She arrived in Albany a few days before Christmas. Then her case manager lost their job, and now she worries about the rent that USCRI was supposed to pay. We are homeless right now. We worry every day like country to our country. Sussman says the orientation classes are also now in peril. He's trying to keep them by switching the funding source to a state grant.

This is a way for us to keep the refugees cared for, informed, but having to work through a state program rather than the federal program. Anybody have a question about budgeting part? State lawmakers are considering a new budget that could fill the funding cap, just down the road at the Capitol. That's WNYC's Jimmy Vilcind. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jenae Pierre.

We'll be back tomorrow.