NEW YORK (AP) — Migrant families and their advocates marched outside New York City Hall on Tuesday to demand that Mayor Eric Adams end his plan to limit the number of days newly arrived migrants can stay in the city-operated shelters.
The demonstration by students and parents in City Hall Park was held in response to the order that Adams issued last October, which limits the stay of homeless migrants and their children in the city’s shelters to 60 days. . The Democrat said the measure was necessary to take pressure off a shelter system that has been overwhelmed by asylum seekers crossing the southern border of the United States.
Liza Schwartzwald, director of the New York Immigration Coalition, one of the groups that organized Tuesday’s march, said time limits only serve to uproot families who have already made the dangerous journey to cross the border after fleeing. of poverty and crime in their countries of origin.
“There is no excuse to re-traumatize these families,” he said.
Karen Alford, vice president of the United Federation of Teachers, said the policy will force migrant students who were just adjusting to classes to move from school to school while their families look for new places to live in the city.
“As a city, we have to do better,” he commented.
Spokespeople for Adams did not respond to an email seeking comment. But the mayor had said earlier Tuesday that frustrated New Yorkers should protest in the streets of the nation’s capital.
“We need to mobilize and march and go to DC and tell the federal government that what is happening in New York City is not fair,” declared Adams, who has been one of the mayors of the country’s metropolises that have requested the most help. federal to address the increase in migrants arriving in their cities with little or no coordination, support or resources from President Joe Biden’s government.
The 60-day limit is one of Adams’ efforts to curb the “right to shelter,” a decades-old measure in New York that requires the city to provide emergency shelter to anyone who requests it.
The first families affected by the order were expected to meet the deadline just days after Christmas. But the mayor’s office told The Associated Press last week that those migrants will receive extensions until early January.
So far, notices have been given to about 3,500 families. The adult migrants I saw left alone already have a 30-day limit to stay in shelters.
Those who still need help later after reaching the limit must reapply. But city officials have warned that they may not be resettled immediately. Families could also be sent to the huge tent complexes the city has built far from Manhattan.
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2023-12-20 01:16:41
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