NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Mayor Eric Adams is suing 30 counties that signed executive orders barring New York City from paying to house asylum seekers in hotels, the city announced Wednesday.
Adams is asking the court to nullify the executive orders so the hotels in nearby counties can be incorporated into the city’s pathwork efforts to house more than 47,200 asylum seekers currently living in shelters provided by the city.
More than 74,000 asylum seekers have arrived since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott started sending buses of migrants from the southern border in the spring of 2022, according to the mayor’s office.
New York has reportedly launched 160 temporary shelters to house the migrants, including at least seven refugee camps, dubbed “relief centers” by the mayor.
Starting with Rockland and Orange counties, municipalities in the New York City metropolitan area have been taking executive action to block asylum seekers.
On May 9, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a statewide emergency in response to the arrival of the migrants.
The lawsuit argues that, due to the statewide emergency, the responsibility of housing asylum seekers belongs to all New York municipalities.
“We are doing our part and will continue to do our part, but we need every locality across the state to do their part as well,” said Adams. “We have repeatedly sounded the alarm that our shelter system is at capacity and that we are out of space. While many communities have been overwhelmingly supportive and enthusiastic about welcoming these new arrivals to their cities and towns, some elected officials have attempted to build metaphorical walls around their localities with unlawful executive orders.”
“This lawsuit aims to put an end to this xenophobic bigotry and ensure our state acts as one as we work together to manage this humanitarian crisis fairly and humanely, as we have done from the beginning and as we will continue to do,” he continued.
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