New York mayor tells migrants to move on, ‘consider another city’
- Mayor Eric Adams said city will distribute fliers to ‘combat misinformation’ as it helps migrants ‘take the next step in their journey’
- Adams declared a state of emergency in October 2022 and has called on President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, to provide more resources
New York City will distribute fliers at the US-Mexico border telling newly arrived migrants to “consider another city” and limit shelter stays for adult asylum seekers to 60 days as the city’s Democratic mayor says it is straining to house them.
The office of Mayor Eric Adams said the fliers would seek to “combat misinformation at the border” and that the city would help migrants find other housing and “take the next step in their journey”.
New York City says that it has provided services to 90,000 migrants since last spring and that nearly 55,000 remain in its care. Thousands of those migrants arrived on buses sent by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican who has tried to shift the burden of receiving them to Democratic strongholds.
New York is bound by a decades-old consent decree in a class-action lawsuit to provide shelter for those without homes. As more migrants have arrived, Adams has tried a range of approaches to housing them, from tents to relocating them to other parts of the state.
Two groups advocating for New York City’s homeless population – the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless – said in a joint statement they were reviewing the legality of the new 60-day shelter limit.