NYC Braces for Influx of Migrants as Title 42 Ends; Adams Suspends ‘Right to Shelter’

By Matis Glenn

New York City is preparing for an influx of migrants entering the country, as Title 42 restrictions are set to end Thursday night.

According to ABC, the city is expecting hundreds of new daily arrivals, and is struggling to find a solution while its shelter system is already strained.

President Joe Biden has said that migrants caught crossing the border without having applied for asylum will be turned away, and has sent thousands of soldiers and law enforcement personnel to the Mexico border. The president will allow 30,000 asylum seekers per month from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua, but applicants must pass a background check and have a sponsor in the U.S.

Still, with Thursday’s end of the Trump administration’s pandemic-era policy of turning away asylum seekers due to the risk of Covid spread, prospective migrants believe that they will be allowed in, and a large number are expected to pass through. Once in the country, they are rarely deported.

Last year, busses of migrants came in droves to New York City, after border states began sending them to New York and other Democrat-led states. An estimated 61,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, came to the city.

The city has had for several decades a “Right to Shelter” law, guaranteeing, among other rights, that all people entering the city be housed the day they arrive, and that families are to be placed in a private room with a bathroom and kitchen.

Adams has previously asserted that the law does not apply to migrants, but in practice, the city has not made a distinction.

The city rented out high-class hotels in Manhattan for the migrants, and Adams commissioned the building of “tent cities” to house them.

But with the expected influx of migrants in coming days and weeks and scant space available to house them, Adams wrote an executive order suspending major parts of the law Wednesday evening, removing the guarantee of same-day housing and no longer requiring the city to house families in private rooms.

The Legal Aid Society, advocates for the migrants, said in response that group shelters place families and children at risk of disease and assault.

“This is not a decision taken lightly and we will make every effort to get asylum seekers into shelter as quickly as possible as we have done since day one,” Fabian Levy, a spokesperson for Adams, said in a statement to The Gothamist.

Adams is set to speak with leaders of neighboring counties, to discuss collaboration and attempt to find housing for the migrants. Adams has previously had contentious discussions with officials of Rockland and Orange county.

Both of those counties declared a state of emergency to prevent Adams’ plans to rent out local hotels.

The lifting of Title 42 is part of the Biden administration’s cancellation of pandemic-era policies, after health officials declared an end to the public health emergency earlier this year.