Apparently, New York City is facing a summer crisis, with about a third of the lifeguards needed to watch over its public pools and open beaches. According to Department of Parks & Recreation Commissioner, Sue Donoghue, only 500 out of around 1,400 lifeguards the city needs have been found.
Well, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has a solution: Migrants!
Why? Because they're good at swimming!
(No really, that's what he said.)
"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 said. "That just doesn't make sense."
No ... it doesn't.
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. 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.
It's hard to know whether Mayor Adams was referring to the Rio Grande, the Florida Straits or even the Gulf of Mexico when he declared that migrants were "excellent swimmers," but we have yet to see further evidence that any of the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants that have descended on New York City are proficient in swimming, let alone lifeguard duties.
But we shouldn't be surprised when the Rio Grande gets turned into an obstacle course to ensure that New York City keeps getting the best of the best.
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