Former Governor Paterson: Migrant crime and general unrest in NYC are getting out of control

Crimes committed by migrants – including the alleged subway robbery of an 11-year-old Venezuelan boy last week – and general unrest in New York City “are really getting out of control,” former New York Governor David Paterson said Sunday.

“You just hear about situations like this that you've never heard of before,” the former Democratic governor said on 770 WABC's “The Cats Roundtable” radio program. “Last Tuesday, there was an 11-year-old boy who assaulted a woman on the 7 subway.”

The minor suspect is also linked to a series of robberies in Central Park, police said.

“The first thing [people] “What is striking is that this is a migrant. … It is the result of a lot of people being sent here without the city having time to adjust,” Paterson told moderator John Catsimatidis.

“It just won't work. There are too many people. Not every migrant is a criminal,” said the former governor. “But a significant number of people behave in this anti-cultural way and the only thing they achieve is to alienate people. [immigrant] Citizens who live in the city and try to make the city as great as it is.”

The city has spent about $5.5 billion to house and care for the flood of migrants who have arrived since 2022, the Post reported last week.

Paterson also pointed to a recent spike in crime in Central Park and violent protests outside a rally in Harlem for Vice President Kamala Harris, who will be the Democratic nominee for the White House following President Biden's resignation.

He particularly sharply attacked the demonstrators who had vandalized the “Bird in Hand” restaurant.

“This antisocial, totally seditious mentality seems to be creeping into our daily lives more and more. It's really getting out of control,” Paterson said.

Overall, crime seems to have decreased. Paterson thanks Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Edward Caban for curbing the outbreaks of violence.

But Paterson said sporadic crimes involving migrants, out-of-control protests and incidents in normally safe places like Central Park are “scaring everyone” – and that law enforcement must put a stop to it.

“After a while, people start to think about whether they want to live in a place where this kind of thing is happening… It's becoming a topic that comes up more and more when people are eating or talking on the subway,” he said.

“There needs to be a real change in policy or just provision [of more cops} to try to nip this before it gets to where it got back in the mid ‘70s and then repeated itself in the early ‘90s.”

In a separate WABC interview, Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said New York has President Biden and VP Kamala Harris to blame for its migrant crisis.

Cruz credited Democratic former President Barack Obama with enforcing the law and deporting illegal border-crosssers.

“On immigration, Obama, by and large, followed the law. He actually deported millions of people. … The left got very angry with Obama. They called him ‘the Deporter in Chief,’ ” Cruz said.

“What Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have done — and Harris was the border czar …that no other administration has ever done [is] “They simply ignored the law. They simply released millions of illegal immigrants. This is absolutely unprecedented,” he said.

“They want this result. … They want this invasion to continue and get worse. New York City and every other city in America is paying the price for the invasion.”