New York
CNN
—
Mayor Eric Adams has declared a state of emergency to help address the city’s migrant crisis, which he told reporters on Friday will cost the city $1 billion this fiscal year. .
“We now have a situation where more people are coming to New York than we can immediately accommodate, including families with babies and young children,” Adams said. “Once today’s bus asylum seekers are accommodated, we will surpass the largest number of people in recorded history in our city’s accommodation system.”
The mayor called for emergency federal and state aid to manage the continued influx of asylum seekers.
Adams’ statement will call on all relevant city agencies to coordinate their efforts to respond to the humanitarian crisis and build the city’s emergency humanitarian response and relief centers. The state of emergency will be in effect for 30 days and can be extended, the mayor said.
New York City now has more than 61,000 people in its shelter system, including thousands of homeless people and thousands of asylum seekers who have been bussed in recent months from other parts of the country, according to the mayor. He said more than 17,000 asylum seekers had been bused to New York from the southern border since April this year.
Since the first week of October, Texas has spent more than $18 million busing migrants — who have been processed and released by immigration authorities in Texas border communities — to Washington DC, New York and Chicago. Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced the program in April as part of his response to the Biden administration’s immigration policies and acknowledged taxpayers would likely foot the bill.
New York City’s shelter system is operating at nearly 100% capacity, Adams said. The city plans to spend at least $1 billion by the end of the fiscal year to deal with the influx of migrants, the mayor said, adding that if asylum seekers continue to enter the city At the current rate, the total population within the housing system will surpass 100,000 in the coming year.
Adams said 42 hotels have been set up as emergency shelters and 5,500 migrant children have been enrolled in schools.
The city is also exploring a potential program for New Yorkers to volunteer to take asylum seekers and the “homeless” into their homes.
“New Yorkers want to help, and we’re going to make it easy for them,” the mayor said.
Adams said in September that those responsible were assess how they will react to the influx of migrantsincluding legal options.
“Once we’ve finalized how we’re going to continue to meet our legal and moral obligation, we’ll announce it. Until then, we’re just letting people know what we’re thinking and how we’ll find creative ways to resolve it. this man-made humanitarian crisis,” Adams said at an unrelated event.
A record number of migrants were bused into the city on September 18 – nine in total, the most recorded on a single day in this recent surge, according to two city officials. At least 1,011 asylum seekers arrived Sept. 16-18, according to a third city official.
Texas has bused more than 11,000 migrants to New York, Washington, DC and Chicago since August, Abbott’s office said in September.
Abbott and other supporters of increased immigration restrictions argue that the Biden administration’s policies have enticed more people to cross the border illegally. Some Republican candidates have pushed the narrative of a migrant invasion ahead of the midterm elections, promising they will do more to crack down on illegal immigration.
The bus campaign has led to clashes between Abbott and Adams, whose administration has accused the governor of using human beings as political pawns and whose city has long been seen as a haven for migrants. The mayor asked the federal government for more resources, including housing assistance. The White House said it is in contact with Adams and is committed to securing FEMA funding and other support.
Adams said he spoke with the mayor of El Paso and told him that New York couldn’t accommodate that many asylum seekers. He said the city has been in contact with Abbott’s office, adding that the Texas governor and his team were not open to communication.
Adams reiterated that New York is still a sanctuary city, but stressed that it was unable to handle such an overwhelming influx of migrants.
“We are not telling anyone that New York can accommodate all the migrants in the city,” the mayor said Monday. “We don’t encourage people to send eight or nine buses a day. That’s not what we do. We say that as a sanctuary city entitled to shelter, we will fulfill that obligation. This is what we do.