NEW YORK (AP) — Beset by the steady flow of asylum seekers, New York Mayor Eric Adams has imposed a 30-day limit on adult immigrants staying in city-run shelters to ease pressures on the battered system and perhaps deter other migrants who want to come.
Advocates for migrants and homeless people were quick to call the measure unnecessary and cruel.
But the mayor said it was “one more step in our efforts to help asylum seekers take the next step in their efforts.”
Adams announced the new rules on Friday, after Joe Biden’s administration said last week that it would grant temporary protected status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who arrived before July 31. This would allow them to obtain authorization to work in the country more quickly.
The federal government’s decision has long been desired by Adams and the mayors of other large cities whose shelter systems are buckling under the strain of the number of immigrants they must care for, which grows daily.
“We appreciate the support we have received so far from our state and federal partners, but we have more than 60,000 asylum seekers in our care, and without additional help we will be forced to continue making difficult decisions,” Adams said in his announcement.
Of the 60,000 migrants in the city, a quarter are of Venezuelan origin. Since April-May of last year, more than 116,000 migrants have arrived from the border with Mexico.
In July, Adams had placed a 60-day limit on stays in shelters, which his detractors say violates a court ruling that requires the city to provide shelter to anyone who requests it.
In May, Adams by decree mitigated the municipal right to shelter regulations, which is now the subject of a legal challenge. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat like Adams, backed the mayor, saying in an interview with CNN that the right to shelter was never intended as “an unlimited universal right nor an obligation of the city to literally house the entire world.”
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2023-09-23 19:23:54
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