New York, March 7. New York City announced on Tuesday the creation of an office to attend to asylum seekers who have arrived en masse in the city in recent months and whose number, according to official data, exceeds 30,000, after reaching 50,000 in April. , which unleashed a humanitarian crisis due to the overflow of public services.
Mayor Eric Adams presented this Tuesday a plan that outlines the city’s new policies to respond to this avalanche of immigrants, mostly from Venezuela, and that broke out last year, when the Texas state authorities, from the opposition Republican Party, they began to charter buses loaded with immigrants to Washington and New York, as a way of putting pressure on the Democrats, who control the federal government and also the mayors of both capitals.
The initiative advanced by Adams includes, according to a statement, the establishment of centers for asylum seekers that will be open permanently and a program to facilitate the employment of these people, in which the state university will participate.
One of the most repeated complaints by immigrants is the slowness in the processing of their asylum applications, which can take up to two years, a period during which they do not obtain work permits and can only aspire to illegal jobs.
One of the new service centers will be located at the Porth Authority bus station, located in the center of the city, and the first point of arrival in the city for most immigrants.
Likewise, in connection with different religious centers, applicants will be offered residence and information on the services they can access.
“Over the past year, New York City has faced an unprecedented humanitarian crisis caused by global forces beyond our control,” Eric Adams said Tuesday.
Adams, who last month launched a free travel program for immigrants who want to leave the state, including bus tickets to very close to the Canadian border, added today: “We have moved mountains to help the tens of thousands who They came as the population of our shelters increased at a spectacular rate.”
According to the statement, the city has offered help to more than 14,000 asylum seekers and has opened 92 emergency reception centers.
The goal of the new office, which will be known as OASO, is to move from emergency action to a continuous crisis response system.
