New York City

Eric Adams declares state of emergency for asylum-seeker crisis

The mayor said at this rate, the shelter census could exceed 100,000 next year.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams declares state of emergency for asylum-seeker crisis on Friday.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams declares state of emergency for asylum-seeker crisis on Friday. Screenshot, New York City Mayor’s Office

“New Yorkers are angry. And I am angry too,” New York City Mayor Adams said in a rare speech from City Hall’s Blue Room on Friday, while declaring a state of emergency over the influx of asylum-seekers to the city. Since the spring, over 17,000 asylum seekers have been bused by southern states to New York City, according to the mayor’s office, creating what Adams said has become a “manufactured” humanitarian crisis. 

As he has since the crisis began, Adams walked a tightrope in his address, being careful to commend New York City for doing the right thing in providing shelter to asylum-seekers, while stressing that the city’s response comes at a cost. “Although our compassion is limitless, our resources are not,” Adams said. “The city is going to run out of funding for other priorities.” He didn’t expand on what city spending could be affected, and it’s unclear exactly how much the city has dedicated so far to sheltering asylum-seekers, but Adams said that the city is on track to spend at least $1 billion by the end of this fiscal year. The city’s shelter system is nearly at 100% capacity at over 61,000 people, Adams said, and if the current rate of arrivals continues the number of people in the system could exceed 100,000 next year.

Adams laid the blame for this crisis squarely at the feet of the Republican governors who have sent asylum-seekers to Democratic cities including New York with “virtually no coordination” on their arrival. But calling out politicians who have made political sport of this tactic hasn’t stopped them. So Adams once again called on the federal and state government for aid, noting that the city is working with the state to identify additional locations for emergency shelters. “We need legislation that will allow these asylum-seekers to legally work now, not in six months,” Adams said in a plea to the federal government. “And we need a realistic decompression strategy at the border that will slow the outflow of asylum-seekers.”

Adams followed up after the speech, while taking questions from the press, saying that he would like the national government “to make sure that we can be sure that these asylum-seekers are spread throughout the entire country. We all should be part of resolving this issue.”

The crisis straining New York’s resources has also put a strain on the mayor’s political relations, as he finds himself demanding action from President Joe Biden and Gov. Kathy Hochul, one month ahead of the November midterm elections. Adams downplayed the significance of his criticism of federal policy at the border, saying in his discussions with Biden, the president “understood the urgency of the moment.” 

The Adams administration has been sharply criticized by immigration advocates – and more recently, lawmakers – for failing to provide adequate services like housing and meals to help asylum-seekers arriving in New York. Up until earlier this week, the administration was planning on opening a temporary emergency tent shelter in a parking lot in Orchard Beach – an isolated location that City & State was the first to report would put the tents in a flood zone. The administration is now planning to build the tent shelter in a parking lot on Randall’s Island, which despite having a less severe risk of flooding, has not eliminated all concerns about vulnerability to extreme weather or accessibility issues that migrants sheltered there could face.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and several other council members on Wednesday came out against the administration’s plans to build the outdoor shelter on Randall’s Island. “While an emergency relief center providing more effective intake services for asylum-seekers than the Port Authority makes sense, neither outdoor locations of Orchard Beach nor Randall’s Island are adequate,” the speaker said in a statement. “Given its own flood risks in the middle of hurricane season and colder temperatures from exposure to the East River as winter approaches, Randall’s Island is inconsistent with humanitarian relief.”

Those council members, including Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala, who represents Randall’s Island, and Council Member Shahana Hanif, who chairs the immigration committee, called on the administration to consider using 10 large hotels in Manhattan for emergency shelters, and accelerate permanent housing placements for people currently in the shelter system. Responding to questions Friday morning, the mayor said that his office hasn’t received a list of those hotels from the council yet. A press release from the Adams administration on Friday said that the city has opened 42 hotels as emergency shelters.

The Adams administration seems committed to the use of temporary shelters, referred to as Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers, or HERRCs. The emergency executive order issued Friday is primarily focused on setting them up, directing a variety of agencies and suspending the city’s lengthy land-use approval process in regards to the siting of emergency shelters. It wasn’t clear whether that was legally necessary – the planned tent in Orchard Beach did not go through the land-use review process. 

But Adams mentioned another option for housing asylum-seekers as well: New York residents welcoming them into their homes. Adams said the city was formalizing the legal aspects before providing more details. “So that if you may be someone from Venezuela that is doing well, and you want to help an Venezuelan family, we want to give people the outlet to do so.”

That program was inspired in part by a conversation with a Polish mayor whose citizens were housing refugees from the war in Ukraine, Adams said – and that was just one of the nods to major crises, as he tried to put the city’s current situation into context. He pointed to the city’s response after 9/11 and Superstorm Sandy, as well as the country’s history of accepting immigrants. “I don’t care who you are in this room,” he said during the follow-up press conference at City Hall. “You trace your lineage, we all came from somewhere. All of us. And the same thing some people are saying about these migrant asylum-seekers, they said about your ancestors. Same thing.”

This developing story has been updated.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.