Asylum-seeking migrants camp out on sidewalks by Manhattan's Roosevelt Hotel

Asylum-seeking migrants from Latin America, Africa and beyond are camped out on streets near Grand Central Terminal as Mayor Eric Adams declared earlier this week that New York City has run out of shelter.

With migrant families with children being prioritized for shelter, more than 100 adult migrants were waiting Wednesday afternoon outside the Roosevelt Hotel, which reopened in the spring as a city-run mass intake center. The line is a queue to be processed into the homeless shelter system, which Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said earlier Wednesday was caring for at least 56,200 migrants in almost 200 locations.

The city is under a decades-old, rare-in-the-nation judicial mandate to provide shelter to whoever needs it — which until the migrant crisis had, in practice, applied only to conventional homeless people. The Adams administration is in court to try and relax the mandate.

Since last spring, almost 100,000 migrants have come to the city, Williams-Isom said.

The initial influx had primarily been bused here by U.S. border-state governors to protest the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Although the busing continues, migrants are also coming on their own.

Williams-Isom said that 18,000 migrant children have been enrolled in the local schools. Adams has estimated the cost to the city to house, feed and otherwise care for migrants at $4.3 billion by next summer.

Earlier this week, Adams said: "we have run out of room, we have to figure out how we're going to localize the inevitable that there's no more room indoors."

Last month, the city imposed a 60-day limit on shelter for childless adults, after which migrants must leave and reapply. Williams-Isom said Wednesday she couldn't rule out housing migrants in Manhattan's Central Park, Brooklyn's Prospect Park and other green spaces.

The city and 30 volunteer law firms have helped about 1,300 apply for asylum, she said.

In May she said that “very few” had applied. Williams-Isom, speaking at City Hall at a briefing Wednesday on the crisis, announced a program for students at local colleges and graduate schools to earn credit for helping migrants seek asylum.

Newsday reported in June that the vast majority won’t be eligible for asylum under the high burden set out in U.S. law, but an unknown number will remain in the country anyway.

Uptown outside the Roosevelt, migrants stood, sat and laid down on the pavement behind barricades. The musk of body odor hung in the air. Men washed themselves with bottled water. Others held umbrellas to block the scorching sun.

Some Muslim migrants had rolled out prayer rugs, directed east, to worship. A pizza shop nearby periodically handed out free slices. A clerk jotted down migrants' names and handed out red raffle-type tickets.

Husband and wife José Nitro, age 35, and Ana Camargo, 33, had arrived within the hour after a journey lasting a year from Colombia and Venezuela, crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in December with stops to work in Florida, Pennsylvania and now New York City.

Nitro, of Montería, left his country "because of the wave of crime and I had many threats because l am a former soldier from Colombia," he said through a Spanish translator. He is seeking asylum in the United States, and he wants to work and to "be able to live in peace without being persecuted and threatened by gangs," Nitro said.

“We spent many months walking and sleeping on the street. We ate when we could. The bad thing was when we entered Mexico, I was kidnapped there," he said, adding: "Right now, I am only looking for help to have a roof, even if it is short and to be able to work and go to a room with my wife alone."

The city has sought to place migrants in municipalities across the state, but about half of New York counties have taken legal steps to prevent relocation, including on Long Island. Litigation on the controversy — by and against New York City — is pending.

Asked about the city's progress in convincing municipalities, Williams-Isom said only: "We're continuing to work with the state on that," adding that 1,500 migrants have been relocated outside the city.

Avi Small, a spokesman for Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said the governor's office isn't aware of any current plans to place migrants on Long Islander. But he pointed to earlier remarks by the governor saying the state is sometimes unaware of the city's plans regarding the migrants.  

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone in May issued an executive order seeking to block Suffolk hotels, motels and shelters from contracting with the city to accept asylum-seekers. Soon after, the city sued 30 or so jurisdictions including Suffolk over similar bans.

Suffolk spokeswoman Marykate Guilfoyle on Wednesday said county officials have not been notified of any formal plans to place migrants in the area. Bellone in May said a county task force headed by deputy County Executive Lisa Black would coordinate with the state on the issue. Task force members are in communication with one another but have not met, but are ready to act if needed, Guilfoyle said.

The Suffolk County Legislature in May held a news conference to announce it would hire special counsel to investigate what could be done to stop migrants from being placed there. As of last week Legislative Presiding Officer Kevin McCaffrey (R-Lindenhurst) said no attorney has been selected. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In response to a question of whether Nassau had been asked to shelter migrants, the office of County Executive Bruce Blakeman said in a statement Wednesday: “Nassau is not a sanctuary county."

With Laura Figueroa Hernandez