New York Urges Federal Government to Speed up Work Permits for Asylum Seekers Amid Overwhelming Immigration Crisis

NEW YORK.- Overwhelmed by the flood of immigrants, New York authorities urge the federal government to speed up work permits for asylum seekers and more aid to deal with a problem that all cities in the country should share.

With 40% of hotels with between 51 and 200 rooms occupied by asylum seekers, the city’s mayor, Democrat Eric Adams, began sending immigrants to other locations in New York state to “unzip” the hosting infrastructuresdespite opposition from host communities.

Thus, he is considering limiting the stay in the accommodation to four months. It also evaluates using public school gyms and even hangars at JFK International Airport to accommodate newcomers.

More than 5,800 migrants arrived in this east coast city alone last week and another 4,200 the week before, according to Adams, for whom “the city is paying for a national problem.”

Currently, the coffers of the city -which by law has to provide a roof to whoever requests it-, they provide 42,000 of the 70,000 people who arrived in the last year with accommodation, food, medical care or education. Most came by chartered bus from Republican-ruled states, particularly Texas.

As Adams told MSNBC on Sunday, the flood of immigrants, mainly from Central and South America -particularly from Venezuela-, has cost the city “more than 1 billion dollars” and for this next year it is “projected to spend more than 4000 million”.

The city received 30 million dollars of the 350 delivered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the immigration crisis.

As long as there is no reform of the immigration law, which blocks the Republican Party, the solution, according to Adams, involves the distribution -“coordinated at the border”- of immigrants throughout the country. and the acceleration of work permits by the federal government, which now take an average of 180 days.

“If we allowed them to work, it would reduce the pressure and responsibility of the cities,” Adams argued. However, most migrants take temporary and often low-paying jobs in order to send money back to families left behind.

the venezuelan Sthefani Centeno23-year-old, recently arrived in New York, assures that “even if they are migrant jobs, having a job is a great opportunity.”

“Here there is plenty of work in whatever, washing dishes, peeling potatoes, washing bathrooms. You just have to want to work.” he assured AFP at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, from where the distribution of asylum seekers in the city is now channeled.

According to the governor of the state, the Democrat Kathy Hochul, who along with Adams asked the federal government to expedite the process of work permits, only in the agricultural sector of the state there are 5000 vacancies, the same in the food category and more than 4,000 for janitors, cleaners and housekeepers.

“They are willing to work. They want to work. They came here looking for work and a new future, and they can become part of our communities,” said the governor, a descendant of Irish immigrants.

Adams, a former police officer who came to call himself the “Brooklyn’s Joe Biden” in an alleged communion with the Democratic president, now he spares no criticism of the president’s immigration policy, who aspires to contest the 2024 elections to continue in the White House.

After the so-called “Title 42” expired on May 11, a mechanism adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic that allowed the immediate expulsion of migrants without a visa or documentation, the number of people who try to cross the border between States illegally States and Mexico has fallen. And that, according to US officials, is due to the entry into force of “Title 8”, which includes restrictions on the right to asylum.

Candidates must now apply for asylum through the mobile application “CBP One” that centralizes requests for immigration appointments in the United States. That could contribute to alleviate a little the crisis that the “Big Apple” is experiencing, the city preferred by immigrants, according to its authorities.

Ana Fernandez

AFP