ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday he will travel to Latin America to try to convince people not to seek asylum in his city as he passes struggling to handle the massive influx of migrants that has overwhelmed its shelter system and depleted its financial resources.
The Democratic mayor plans to visit Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia during a four-day tour this week. The city has welcomed nearly 120,000 migrants in the last year, and hundreds continue to arrive daily in need of a place to stay and work.
“We want to offer an honest assessment of what we are experiencing here in this city,” Adams said. “We are at the limit of our capacity.”
“We are going to tell them that coming to New York does not mean that they are going to stay in a five-star hotel. “It doesn’t mean that, just because you come here, you’re automatically going to be allowed to work,” he said.
Adams has made several urgent calls for a change in federal immigration policy and for funding to help the city manage the influx of migrants, which he says could cost the city $12 billion. by renting space in hotels, building new emergency shelters and providing public assistance to asylum seekers.
The Latin American tour begins Wednesday in Mexico, where Adams will attend the North Capital Forum and meet with government officials. Later she will travel to Quito, Ecuador, for more meetings, and then to Bogotá, Colombia. He will finally visit the Darién region, a dangerous stretch of the route that many migrants cross on their way to the United States.
Adams has tightened New York’s shelter rules, limiting adult migrants’ stays to just 30 days in facilities operated by the city government due to overcrowding. The city is also resisting a decades-old legal agreement that requires it to provide shelter to anyone who requests it. On Tuesday, the city asked a judge to allow the measure to be suspended during a state of emergency in which the shelter population is increasing rapidly.
City and state leaders in New York, Illinois and other parts of the United States have asked the federal government to make it easier for migrants to obtain work permits, which would allow them to pay for their own food and housing.
The Biden administration took a step toward meeting this requirement last month by granting Temporary Protected Status to some 472,000 Venezuelans who are in the United States, which will allow them to process work permits. Adams and New York Governor Kathy Hochul have announced $38 million in new state funding to help connect migrants with legal services.
However, to expedite the granting of work permits to migrants in general, a Congressional act would be necessary to shorten the mandatory six-month waiting period for work permits for asylum seekers who cross the border illegally. With divided control of Congress, such a law seems unlikely.
Chicago also plans to send a delegation to the Texas border with Mexico to meet with officials and non-governmental organizations and give immigrants a more realistic picture of what awaits them in Chicago.
Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s chief of staff, said the trip to the Texas border will be used, in part, to warn migrants about Chicago winters.
“We want to control the number of people who come and stay in Chicago,” he said.
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2023-10-03 22:25:50
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