NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – The largest migrant shelter in Brooklyn could be at risk of closure, as New York City officials reportedly plan to shut it down before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.
Located at Floyd Bennett Field in Jamaica Bay, the shelter consists of a tent complex housing around 500 families. The 2,000-bed shelter was established after Mayore Eric Adams announced that hotels and other shelters had reached capacity, as New York became a primary destination for buses from Texas.
City officials have concerns about the future of the Floyd Bennett Field shelter, which operates on federal land under a government lease, City Hall sources told the New York Times. They fear that once Trump takes office in January, he could cancel the lease or send immigration officers to detain noncitizens at the shelter.
While ICE officers usually need judicial warrants to enter city shelters and arrest specific individuals, lawyers caution that the shelter's location on federal property could make its residents, many with uncertain legal status, more vulnerable to immigration enforcement.
Adams signed the Floyd Bennett Field lease with the Biden administration last year, and the state is now paying about $250 million a year to run the shelter, one of the city's largest.
City officials are waiting for the state to promise it will keep paying to house a similar number of migrant families elsewhere before announcing the shelter's closure, according to the New York Times.
City officials are also focused on protecting essential federal funding for housing, health care, and education, amid fears that Mr. Trump could attempt to reduce financial aid for cities, according to the report.
During his weekly news conference, Adams was asked about the shelter's future but did not provide an answer.
"When I make a determination of what I'm doing with Floyd Bennett Field, I'm going to announce what I'm doing with Floyd Bennett Field," he said.
Four emergency shelters in New York City have closed this month, with all upstate shelters scheduled to close by December and the Randall's Island shelter set to close on Feb. 28, 2025, due to a decline in the number of people entering the shelter system each week, according to the mayor's office.
"We've come a long way since the first buses from Texas arrived in our city over two years ago, when we were working around the clock to care for the thousands of people who were arriving every week," Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said in a statement to 1010 WINS.
More than 165,000 migrants have left New York City's shelter system since, according to Altus.
"We continue to look closely at all of our shelters and will make all determinations based on what's best for our city and those in our care," Altus said.
