Asylum seekers continue to arrive by busloads from Texas and other states breaking daily records for the number of people staying in New York City shelters. As a result of the influx of people into New York City, Mayor Eric Adams on Friday declared a state of emergency and issued an executive order to temporarily suspend land use requirements.
Mayor Adams expressed his displeasure that the city’s generosity was being “exploited by others for political gain” and he blamed the dynamics of American politics for hastening a “humanitarian crisis.”
A total of 61 thousand people are being housed in shelters, “stretching our ability to care for New Yorkers in need,” as Adams put it. He believes the city will spend $1 billion by the end of the fiscal year.
5500 migrant children are currently enrolled in city schools. “Although our compassion is limitless, our resources are not,” Adams said in a speech delivered from the City Hall Blue Room. “We can’t keep going like this.”
Twenty thousand kids are among the 61,000 sheltered individuals. Around one in every five people in this country is a refugee. More than seventeen thousand refugees have been transported by bus to the Big Apple. Approximately five to six buses make daily stops.
The mayor has asked hotels to house evacuees temporarily, the business community for donations and faith communities to take in displaced people by adopting a shelter. While speaking to the media, Mayor Adams stated that the issue of asylum seekers “should be handled at the border.”
Adams gave no indication that he was willing to cooperate with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who might agree. Adams remarked, “He’s untrustworthy. He advocated for a plan that would disperse refugees across the country so that they could be accommodated in several different cities.
He asked the federal and state governments for more aid and told El Paso to “stop sending buses to New York.”
On Friday, a DHS spokesman blamed “failing authoritarian regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba” for the influx of new migrants and accused Republican governors of using asylum seekers as “political pawns.”
With some Republican governors deliberately sowing confusion and chaos with cruel political stunts, we will continue to do everything we can to support cities,” the statement read.
