Upstate New York counties pledge to fight New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ plans to send migrants and asylum seekers north for temporary housing.
On Monday, Orange County Executive Steven M. Neuhaus issued an enforcement order that hotels not accept asylum seekers.
Neuhaus accused the mayor of reneging on his promise to send only 60 adult male migrant asylum seekers without notifying Orange County officials. He said the county could no longer rely on representations from New York City officials.
FILE: New York Mayor Eric Adams addresses family members of deceased NYPD officers during the NYPD Memorial Day ceremony where new names were added to the memorial wall in the headquarters lobby. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News via Getty Images)
“[T]there is no reason to believe that these migrants or asylum seekers will leave Orange County after New York City stops paying for housing and services currently being received in New York, or several thousand ‘Other migrants or asylum seekers will not be transported to Orange County,’ Neuhaus said.
The county executive has predicted that an influx of migrants into the county will overwhelm city resources and as such there is “no legal basis to provide adequate services to these migrants or job seekers. asylum”.
LIFTING OF TITLE 42 CAUSES CRISIS, SENDING INCORRECT MESSAGE TO MIGRANTS, SAYS TEXAS CHARITY HEAD
Neuhaus ordered that all “hotels, motels, and/or facilities permitting short-term rentals not accept said migrants and/or asylum seekers for accommodation in Orange County.”
At a press conference with U.S. Representative Michael Lawler and other officials, Rockland County Executive Ed Day said the county was “not equipped to humanely help these people, which we will have to possibly do”.
Day, a Republican, called Mayor Adams’ plan to take up to 300 single adult male migrants to hotels in Rockland and neighboring Orange counties “the same as throwing people in the middle of the ‘ocean who cannot swim and say’ go to shore.’ It can’t work.
Adams, a Democrat, on Friday announced the plan to bus migrants to the two counties north of the city on a voluntary basis. He said the program would help the city deal with the more than 37,500 asylum seekers the city is supporting.
DEMOCRATS MAURY AT BIDEN ADMIN’S HANDLING OF SOUTHERN BORDER AS TITLE 42 EXPIRES NEAR
Adams announced the plan as cities across the United States brace for a surge in migrants seeking asylum when pandemic-era policy Title 42, which allowed the deportation of many migrants ends. Officials predict the end of immigration limits under Title 42 of a 1944 public health law will mean more migrants trying to cross the southern border.
FILE: Immigrants warm themselves by a fire at dawn after spending a night along the US-Mexico border fence December 22, 2022 in El Paso, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Adams said migrants sent from New York to Rockland and Orange counties would receive meals, counseling and other services for up to four months in hotels.
Adams complained for months that the volume of migrants arriving in New York exceeded the city’s capacity and criticized Texas Governor Greg Abbott and other Republican lawmakers for ferrying migrants to New York.
Adams’ administration uses hotels in the city to house some migrants, mostly families with children. Plans to house other people at sites such as a cruise ship terminal and a beach parking lot in the Bronx have been scrapped. Texas and other border states have faced historic numbers of illegal border crossings since the crisis began in the early days of President Biden’s term.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to the mayor’s office for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.