NYC to Open Asylum-Seeker Center for Migrants

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Facts

  • New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on Saturday that the city will use the historic Roosevelt Hotel as an arrival center to provide as many as 1k rooms for migrants expected to arrive in the coming weeks following the expiration of Title 42, a pandemic-era public health policy that allowed asylum seekers to be turned away from the southern border.1
  • As hundreds of migrants are arriving in the city each day, the arrival center will be the city’s first and it will double as the ninth Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center.2
  • The city is aggressively arranging housing for the migrants, who are being placed in hotels and other venues on a temporary basis.3
  • Adams said the city has already taken in more than 65k migrants, many of whom are asylum seekers, and is asking for "federal and state partners for a real decompression strategy." Adams's plans have been somewhat stymied by lawsuits in suburban counties in NY State.4
  • Last week, Adams suspended a legal mandate requiring the city to provide shelter to anyone who needs it and lifted a nightly deadline for them to be housed.5
  • One factor further contributing to the surge of migrants has been Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s sending of buses carrying migrants from Texas to New York, with 17k asylum seekers being bused in between April and October last year.6

Sources: 1Associated Press, 2CNN, 3NBC New York, 4Gothamist, 5Huffington Post, and 6Newsweek.

Narratives

  • Democratic narrative, as provided by ABC News. New York City needs financial support and housing help from the federal and state governments, but for now the Adams administration is doing what it can to compassionately care for the uptick in the number of migrants arriving. Migrants should make their way to the Roosevelt while Adams negotiates with his counterparts in other parts of the state to find safe spaces for those seeking asylum.
  • Republican narrative, as provided by New York Post. It’s unbelievable how incompetently Democrats have dealt with this migrant crisis. From booting homeless veterans out of shelters to putting migrants in school gymnasiums where they could prove dangerous to children, Adams and the city's leadership seem lost and there’s no telling what they’ll do next.