NEW YORK – This August 5 marks one year to the day Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that his state would begin busing border-crossing immigrants directly into New York City. .
On the occasion of the first year of the arrival of buses from the southern border with migrants, leaders of different organizations, which supported asylum seekers during the past year, will meet to discuss the current situation with the migration crisis and the solutions to address the problems of resources, housing and work permits. These organizations, like the New York Immigration Coalition, have supported asylum seekers over the past year, with information about the challenges they face and the solutions needed in terms of housing, legal services, and work authorization to ensure well-being and the integration of newcomers to New York City.
CURRENT SITUATION WITH THE IMMIGRATION CRISIS IN NEW YORK
More than 93,000 asylum seekers have entered the City’s intake system since spring 2022, and some 56,200 asylum seekers are in the care of New York City at this time. The Big Apple now has 192 shelters and 13 humanitarian aid centers that, due to the crisis, cannot cope. That’s why migrants began sleeping on the sidewalks outside the Roosevelt Hotel, which serves as an arrival point and shelter for families with children, since the weekend, and city officials say New Yorkers are likely to see more scenes. like this one in which some people have chosen to sleep on the streets given the current limitations of space and resources to handle the continuous arrival of migrants in the city who are desperate for help.
Not only the city agencies explain that they no longer have shelters, but also organizations that have shelters, such as churches, declare that they cannot receive more immigrants due to the lack of space and resources.
“The reality is that the situation is very serious at the moment, new people are arriving every day who are saying that they have gone to other shelters and they have not been given a place, so we are very concerned about the situation and we want to do everything that we can to help, but we also know that we are just like the city, very limited,” activist Mika López said on Tuesday.
That is why legislators in New York asked the Biden administration to help address and confront the humanitarian crisis of the daily arrival of hundreds of migrants seeking asylum.
“Fema has not acted in an effective way, it has not given the funds quickly to the City of New York that it deserves to have, the second thing is that this can be helped to solve with a simple action and it is the right to work,” he said Congressman Adriano Espallat.
Jefferson, a migrant from Colombia, told News4 New York on Saturday that his bed for the past four days has been a piece of cardboard. The dream sold on social media that she would get a bed and a job in New York City has turned into a nightmare that she now says she regrets. Jefferson now has a message for other Colombians thinking about making the trip to the United States: “Stay there. Don’t come here.”
For days, Mayor Eric Adams has sounded the alarm that the city has run out of space for asylum seekers.
With an average of 300 to 500 people arriving per day, the city is taking drastic new measures, like giving unaccompanied immigrants already in the city’s care 60 days notice to find another roof over their heads.
So far in 2023, the city has spent more than $1.5 billion caring for migrants and they expect that by the end of 2025 they will have spent $4.3 billion. One measure the city took is to give migrants in shelters 60 days to find a home.
How Texas started sending migrants on buses on August 5, 2022
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on August 5, 2022, that his state was going to bus immigrants arriving at the border to New York City, escalating a war of words with the mayor of the city of Texas. New York, Eric Adams, and threatening the city’s shelter system.
“Due to President Biden’s continued refusal to acknowledge the crisis caused by his open border policies, the State of Texas has had to take unprecedented steps to keep our communities safe,” Abbott said in a statement that day. “In addition to Washington, DC, New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants, who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Eric Adams has boasted of within the sanctuary city. I hope that Make good on your promise to welcome all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border cities can find relief.”
On July 19, 2022, Adams released a statement stating that the governors of Texas and Arizona were sending thousands of asylum seekers on buses to New York City, which has housing rights laws that require the city to take care of these immigrants.
Yolanda Vásquez has details.
