NYC enables new shelter for asylum seekers

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City authorities have temporarily opened a cruise ship terminal as a center for shelter and services for asylum seekers, Mayor Eric Adams said Saturday, announcing the latest of several facilities the city it has opened—and sometimes closed—to cope with the continued arrival of such migrants.

The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will provide shelter, food, medical care and other services to 1,000 men alone until it resumes normal activities in the spring, the city said in a statement.

The first occupants will be transferred from another assistance center set up in a hotel, which will now receive families seeking asylum with children.

“Our city is at its breaking point,” said Democratic Mayor Adams, who has repeatedly appealed for state and federal resources to deal with the influx of asylum seekers, some of whom were bused by governors from other states to the most populous city in the United States.

Adams traveled to El Paso, Texas, this week to visit the southern border and raised the issue that forced him to declare a state of emergency this fall.

In all, 41,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the city since last spring, according to the mayor. With the terminal, the city will have five “Emergency Humanitarian Assistance and Response” centers for the nearly 28,000 asylum seekers it currently houses and those who may arrive. Some 77 hotels have also been set up as emergency shelters.

Previous actions by city authorities related to the opening of shelters for new arrivals have raised questions and the facilities have not been in permanent operation. A plan to set up a hangar-sized tent in a parking lot at a beach was canceled for fears of flooding from a storm.

The city then built a giant tent complex on an island that has parks and sports facilities; the tent facility closed three weeks later as it was not fully utilized due to a temporary drop in arrivals.