New York battles over immigrants: A look at NYC mayor’s new plan and the pushback from the suburbs

New York City and its neighboring counties have been in a legal battle this past week after Mayor Eric Adams (D) unveiled a plan to send 340 male immigrants to hotels outside of its jurisdiction.

Executives from Rockland and Orange counties claimed they were given no prior notice about the immigrants before Adams released his proposal, prompting outrage over a perceived blindside.

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“This is absurd, and we will not stand for it. There is nothing humanitarian about a sanctuary city sending busloads of people to a county that does not have the infrastructure to care for them,” Rockland County Executive Ed Day said in a press release shared with the Washington Examiner. “It’s the same as throwing them in the middle of the ocean with nowhere to swim.” 

Officials in Rockland told the Washington Examiner that a housing crisis already exists within the county, which quadrupling the homeless population would only worsen. Both counties have declared “states of emergency” over the possible influx of immigrants and filed lawsuits they hope will deter unwanted guests.

“This county has a severe housing crisis, subjecting many low-income families in Rockland to overcrowded and unsafe living conditions,” Day said in a statement. “Quadrupling the number of homeless in this county overnight, as the city is intending to do, will only compound our housing crisis and lead to more people living in these dangerously inhumane conditions that we are fighting to fix.”

A restraining order that blocked Adams’s plan was approved by the New York Supreme Court on Thursday, but the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department will still post guards outside of the Armoni Inn and Suites in Orangeburg, New York, just in case, the county said.

If Adams’s plan had gone through, New York City would have sent 340 immigrant men to hotels in the two counties, where they would have stayed for free for four months. The lodging, food, and other necessities would have been paid for by New York City.

“The City of New York lacks authority to establish a shelter outside of its boundaries in addition to failing to follow New York State rules and regulations required to do so,” Rockland County Attorney Thomas Humbach said. “At this point, the temporary restraining order prohibits the city from bringing people to Rockland County for the purpose of sheltering them.”

The county said it does not expect any immigrants now that the temporary restraining order has been put in place, but the county has seen its own natural surge of immigration in recent months.

Adams has backtracked on his guarantee to house immigrants that are bused from the Texas-Mexico border on the day they arrive in the city but said housing the immigrants is still a top priority.

“This is not a decision taken lightly, and we will make every effort to get asylum seekers into shelter as quickly as possible as we have done since Day One,” City Hall spokesperson Fabian Levy said in a statement Wednesday night.

Adams’s administration also eliminated a guarantee that families with children would be placed in private rooms with bathrooms instead of group settings. New York City’s plan comes as it anticipates a surge in busloads after Title 42 expired on Thursday.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) started sending busloads of immigrants who entered the U.S. through the Mexico border in Texas last year to self-proclaimed sanctuary cities to help relieve some of the burdens on border towns. Abbott said it was also to show city officials the realities of the border crisis.

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Cities that have accepted immigrants include New York City, Denver, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Portland, among others.

New York City has opened eight humanitarian relief centers in response to the surge and spread immigrant housing across 120 homeless shelters. There are at least 78,763 people in the city’s main shelter system as of Tuesday, nearly half of whom are immigrants.

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