The Mayor of New York announced the city would erect camps with hangar-sized tents in a Bronx neighborhood in order to house an influx of migrants being sent to the city from southern border states.
Mayor Eric Adams announced on Thursday the city would open ‘humanitarian response and relief centers’ in response to the ongoing migrant crisis currently burdening the city’s shelter system.
The number of migrants housed in New York City shelters has increased to over 10,000, the mayor said on Sunday.
That’s on top of another 52,137 people housed in homeless shelters across the five boroughs, according to the most recent data from the Coalition for the Homeless.
As an example Earlier this week, a migrant from Colombia took her own life in a homeless shelter in Queens, highlighting the strain the system is putting on individuals.
‘This is not an everyday homelessness crisis, but a humanitarian crisis that requires a different approach,’ Adams stated on Thursday.
The first designated relief center will be built on the Orchard Beach parking lot in the Bronx’s Pelham Bay Park. The Orchard Beach site will serve 1,000 single adults. The site will be climate-controlled and weatherized to continue operating through the winter.
Another facility will be opened shortly after Orchard Beach, whose site has not yet been determined. The sites will be designed to house asylum seekers who cannot find immediate housing for 24 to 96 hours.
The facilities will offer asylum seekers shelter, food, medical care, and case workers to help them meet up with family around the country.
Buses carrying migrants will be directed to go straight to Orchard Beach, or directed there from the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
‘More than 100 years ago, Ellis Island opened its doors to welcome in those “yearning to breathe free,”‘ Adams stated on Thursday. ‘Now, more than ever, it’s clear that we are again dealing with a humanitarian crisis created by human hands. While other leaders have abdicated their moral duty to support arriving asylum seekers, New York City refuses to do so.’
The Mayor seemed to be taking a jab at Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who have been escalating their messaging on the southern border leading up to November’s midterm elections.
Abbott began bussing migrants to cities like New York and Washington, DC. Last week, Abbott sent a busload of migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence at the US Naval Observatory in DC.
In the past Adams called Abbott’s bussing policy a ‘political stunt.’
‘When we first discovered that the Texas governor was actually orchestrating this political showmanship, we reached out to the office and stated, let’s coordinate this crisis together and figure out how to address this together,’ Adams said in an interview on MSNBC last Sunday.
‘They never coordinated. They continued to send the buses. Even last night we got a minimum of six buses and that was never done. And that is not how you handle crisis. You handle crisis through coordinations.’
Earlier this week, DeSantis used Floridian money to fly a plane full of migrants from San Antonio, Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Multiple investigations have been opened into DeSantis’s now-notorious flight, and several migrants have announced a lawsuit against the governor for misleading them about where the plane was going.
However, some advocates in New York City have already criticized Adams’ plan, and the administration’s lack of details about the rollout.
‘We are deeply concerned with any scenario in which families with children would be relegated to congregate settings. This practice, which has been widely condemned for its adverse and dangerous impact on this uniquely vulnerable population, is already subject to legal prohibitions,’ The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless said in a joint statement issued on Thursday.
The two groups said they have not gotten any response from the administration when they confronted them with their concerns.
‘That said, we remain willing to work with the City on a viable solution that satisfies New York’s legal and moral obligation to provide safe and adequate shelter to all who seek it, including asylum seekers,’ they stated.
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