NYC Council blasts conditions at migrant shelters: ‘We’re just warehousing people.’

The City Council excoriated Mayor Eric Adams' response to the city's ongoing migrant crisis on Wednesday amid mounting concerns over the growing number of arrivals.

“Now that we are over a year into the situation, we must be building the long-term infrastructure needed to help recent arrivals succeed,” said Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who represents the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Park Slope, during a budget hearing on immigration and youth services on Wednesday. “It has been embarrassing to read in recent headlines that the administration is scrambling to find viable options. This is not where we should be today.”

Tens of thousands of migrants have flocked to the state since last spring – partly due to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive to deliver busloads of migrants to New York City in protest of the Biden administration’s stance on immigration law. New York officials are bracing for the arrival of more migrants in the coming days once Title 42 — a pandemic-era measure allowing authorities to turn away migrants at the border — expires on Thursday.

As local officials push back against the mayor’s response to the ongoing migrant crisis, Adams continues to blame Washington, which he says isn’t giving the city enough resources. Manuel Castro, the commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, echoed the mayor’s sentiments during the hearing.

“A lot of the needs that I’m seeing are a direct result of inaction by the federal government, and so we need to call that into question,” Castro said.

But councilmembers raised concerns over reports of the conditions at some of the emergency shelters and facilities, which lacked heat, hot water or places for migrants to safely store their belongings. In February, a migrant at a Red Hook shelter attempted suicide. The lack of space in these facilities led the city to house some of its migrants in “tent cities” and hotel rooms. Meanwhile, other migrants say they’re unable to find work without accessible childcare, and immigration advocates claim that migrants aren’t receiving the legal services they need.

“I think one of the concerns is that if we’re not focusing on moving folks out of shelters, or moving folks toward getting jobs, then obviously that number is just going to keep going up,” said Councilmember Justin Brannan, who represents Dyker Heights and Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. “Basically, we’re just warehousing people.”

On Tuesday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency, and city employees are being asked to work multiple 12-hour shifts as the city braces for even more arrivals. Roughly 37,500 migrants are currently housed in the city's facilities. The anticipated strain is also compounding conflict between the Council and the mayor, who is pushing for drastic cuts across multiple city agencies to offset the billions of dollars he says the city is expected to spend on the migrant crisis in the coming years. Councilmembers claim that Adams’ proposed spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year will remove essential services that New Yorkers rely on, including public libraries and resources for the elderly.

And the pushback is happening elsewhere, too: On Monday, officials in Rockland County publicly condemned Adams’ plan to bus hundreds of migrants to hotels in the Hudson Valley, located north of the city.

During the hearing, Castro said that the “uneven” level of support for asylum-seekers across the country will continue to result in New York City bearing the brunt of the nation’s migrant crisis.

“If I was a migrant, with my children at the border, I would probably be thinking, ‘Let’s go to New York!’” Castro said. “Because there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else.”