NY Mayor Adams Declared State Of Emergency Over Migrant Crisis

HI INDIA NEWS DESK
NEW YORK, NY — A massive influx of asylum seekers is an “unsustainable” crisis that threatens to stretch New York City’s shelters and budget to the breaking point, Mayor Eric Adams said in an address to the city Friday.

Adams declared a state of emergency over the migrant crisis that suspends local laws to make it easier to build temporary humanitarian shelters to house migrants such as one planned on Randall’s Island.

The move is necessary because the city’s shelter system is nearing 100 percent capacity and on track to have 100,000 people within it in the year to come. He said the city is on track to spend $1 billion this fiscal year on the crisis.
“This is unsustainable,” he said. “The city is going to run out of funding for other priorities.”

“New York City is doing all we can, but we are reaching the outer limit of our ability to help.”
New York City is bearing more than its fair share of a “national crisis” caused by political motivations, Adams said.

Adams outlined the crisis in stark terms.

He said more than 17,000 migrants have arrived in the city so far, largely by Republicans politicians such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who have been dealing with a surge in asylum seekers from South America.

Hundreds of migrant buses have arrived since April, and nine arrived on Thursday alone, he said.

One in five people in city shelters are migrants, out of 61,000, he said.

“Every day, from this point forward, we’re setting a new record,” he said.

“We have not asked for this. There was never any agreement to take on the job of supporting thousands of asylum seekers. This responsibility was simply handed to us without warning as buses began showing up.”

Adams called on President Joe Biden to slow the flow of asylum seekers at the United States’ southern border. He also asked New York state lawmakers to provide emergency relief to the city.

The mayor’s call-out to Biden came just hours before the president’s planned fundraiser in the Upper East Side mansion of James Murdoch, the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.