New York’s mayor announced plans Friday to send hundreds of asylum seekers to two hotels north of the city for up to four months, to try to cope with a surge of arrivals, but mostly antagonizing area officials. suburban.
The government of Democratic Mayor Eric Adams said that up to 300 single adult men under the care of the city will be transported on a voluntary basis to a hotel in Orangeburg, in Rockland County, and another in Orange Lake, in neighboring Orange County. Adams has criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for sending asylum seekers to New York without prior coordination, and officials representing areas north of the city raised similar complaints against Adams on Friday.
The mayor has also repeatedly called for more state and federal help to deal with the influx of asylum seekers, many of whom were bused into the city by governors from other states. He said the program would help the city handle the more than 37,500 asylum seekers it currently deals with.
The government said the men sent to the hotels will receive food, counselling, legal support and other services.
“With a leadership vacuum, we are now forced to undertake our own decompression strategy,” Adams said in a press release. “This new voluntary program will provide asylum seekers with temporary housing, access to services, and connections to local communities while they build a stable life in New York State.”
Some Republican officials in areas north of New York City reacted harshly, saying they had just been informed of the plan and that the region lacks subways and the services needed to handle a surge of asylum seekers.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day called the mayor’s plan “reckless.”
“This is like dropping a non-swimmer in the middle of the ocean and hoping they do well,” Day said in a telephone interview.
Day indicated that the county attorney was studying the possibility of obtaining judicial.
Orange County Administrator Steve Neuhaus was shocked to hear the news Friday and said he continued to have questions about arrivals.
”Who are these guys? Have they been duly investigated? What are they going to do? Are they going to be hanging around the city?” Neuhaus said in a telephone interview.
Immigrant advocates also criticized the move.
“Taking people upstate to shelter is just a temporary solution,” Murad Awawdeh of the New York Immigration Coalition said in a news release. “They’ll be out of sight, but it’s short-sighted to think that the mayor can solve New York’s housing problems this way.”
Some 60,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the city since the beginning of last year, according to the mayor’s office.
The city government has already tried various ways to house asylum seekers, including a plan announced in January to temporarily convert a cruise ship terminal into a reception and services center.
2023-05-06 03:18:18
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