NEW YORK — The state of New York this Friday extended the state of emergency due to the immigration crisis, which will allow it to use more public funds to provide shelter and humanitarian assistance to new arrivals, while the first reactions of some communities begin to emerge. locals against their welcome.
The state governor, Kathy Hochul, expanded the emergency after asking US President Joe Biden on Thursday for the federal government to get involved in the crisis, especially by facilitating work permits for asylum seekers, to which on Friday the White House responded justifying itself by a lack of “action” of the Congress.
In the last fifteen months, more than 100,000 immigrants who the authorities call asylum seekers have arrived in New York, especially in the Big Apple, which is required by law to welcome them, which has saturated the public shelter system and led to accommodate them in dozens of temporary spaces.
In total, more than 200 makeshift shelters have been opened, including 15 humanitarian aid centers.
But some spaces converted into shelters, ranging from hotels to school gyms, have generated resistance in their communities, most recently on Friday, in Staten Island County, which has sued the local New York administration to prevent a former disused school becomes a temporary shelter.
According to local media, this Friday morning there were three detainees in a neighborhood protest against the use of the old school St. John Villa Academy as a shelter for a group of immigrants who had already begun to be transferred there by the administration, and who are families and single women.
Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella, a Republican, announced a lawsuit against the city on Friday and a judge ruled in his favor, barring the administration from using the space as a shelter for the next two weeks even though it is owned by them. since 2018, according to the ABC7 channel.
One of the biggest problems in the immigration crisis is the slowness with which newcomers are processing their asylum applications – which take several months – which delays their search for legal employment, which is why both the state and the city have announced investments to assist these people in the corresponding bureaucracy.
Apart from that, the governor announced Friday a program to connect asylum seekers who already have federal work permits and employment opportunities, and a web portal for companies to tell the state if they are open to hiring newcomers.
2023-08-26 02:58:45
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