(Washington Insider Magazine) – NYC’s “right to refuge” policy does not apply to the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who have arrived, Mayor Adams said. In his clamor for federal funds, last week he called on President Biden to close the southern border.
New York City’s “right to refuge” policy does not apply to the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who have arrived since last spring, Mayor Eric Adams said yesterday.
Democratic Leader’s Comments on WABC’s
The Democratic leader’s comments on WABC’s “Sid & Friends in the Morning” radio show came as his administration struggles to accommodate the wave of immigrants in its “sanctuary city” and pleads with federal officials for funds to fill a need. estimated at up to $2 billion.
In early 2023 Adams traveled to Washington DC and the border at El Paso (Texas) toughening his stance on immigration, which had been lax last year. “There is no more space… but local laws force us here to provide shelter and keep moving in the right direction,” he said. “This has impacted the quality of life in New York.”
He also wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post last week calling on President Joe Biden to close the southern border until immigrants’ asylum claims could be processed and outlining a “decompression” strategy to ease the crisis and settle immigrants. immigrants.
Chaos and confusion: New York immigration courts and lawyers collapsed before massive arrival of asylum seekers
“The court has ruled that this is a sanctuary city,” Adams told radio host Sid Rosenberg yesterday. “We have a moral and legal obligation to comply with that. (But) We don’t think asylum seekers fall for the “right to housing” conversation.
“There is no more room…and the reason there is no more room at the inn is because the federal government is not doing its job,” Adams insisted.
Amid a national political battle between Democrats and Republicans, New York City has seen more than 41,600 asylum seekers arrive since the spring of 2022 and has opened 77 emergency shelters and four Aid and Response Centers. Two more on the way are announced in Midtown Manhattan and the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
Those who arrive do not have a work permit, something that the mayor has attached to his federal requirements to avoid risks of homelessness, depression and crime. In October Adams declared a “state of emergency” over the immigration crisis in NYC, asking for financial and legislative assistance from the White House and state legislators. “It’s burning our budget,” he said then.
NYC’s “right to refuge” law is one of the strictest sanctuary city laws in the country, requiring the government to make a roof available to anyone experiencing homelessness on any given night. It was launched on the heels of a 1979 Legal Aid Society lawsuit against NYC on behalf of six homeless men, the New York Post recalled.
The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless criticized the mayor for his comments yesterday. “This is not a responsibility Mayor Adams can choose to shy away from, and he knows better.”
The mayor’s press secretary, Fabien Levy, responded to them thus: “Legal Aid’s suggestion that the city is in breach of its [sic] legal obligations could not be further from the truth… But, as we have made clear for months, and as Legal Aid even said (yesterday), the federal government has an obligation here, as does the state” New York.
At least two asylum seekers have died in the past months in city shelters: a Colombian mother in September and a Venezuelan youth in December.
With housing and funds scarce, the wait for long-awaited legal status seems long for many: Immigration courts in New York state were already backlogged by 180,000 cases before thousands of immigrants began arriving in 2022.
This article is authored by Andrés Correa.
