Adams would consider tighter rules on how migrants travel to NYC

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday said he would consider broadening his order restricting how foreign migrants can be transported into the city to go beyond buses, and it could include planes and trains.

At a news conference, Adams said he's hoping surrounding municipalities in the metropolitan area enact their own orders restricting migrant drop-offs.

“Everyone that has that train line that leads into the city, everyone that has — the municipalities around us — they should do the same EO,” Adams said, using an abbreviation for executive order.

In New Jersey, the mayor of Secaucus said over the weekend that at least four buses have arrived in his town.

Since spring 2022, almost 160,000 migrants, mostly from Latin America but also from other regions, have arrived in the city, straining social services and costing an estimated $12 billion by the upcoming fiscal year. Newsday reported in June that most migrants are unlikely to file for asylum, few of those who do will be granted it, and an unknown number will stay in the United States illegally.

Asked whether Nassau would enact an order restricting migrant drop-offs, county spokesman Chris Boyle provided a written statement from the county executive, Bruce Blakeman, saying: “It is not necessary as Nassau County is not a sanctuary county. Boyle would not say whether the drop-offs are in any way restricted in the county.

Michael Martino, a spokesman for Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Adams's order, which he signed last week, requires migrant-carrying charter buses to provide the city at least 32 hours’ notice before a drop off and restricts timing to between 8:30 a.m. and noon on weekdays.

Violators can be charged with a misdemeanor, punishable by up to three months in jail and fines of $500 for individuals and $2,000 for corporations.

The buses are in part the brainchild of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who began sending migrants crossing the southern U.S. border to sanctuary cities such as New York and Chicago in protest of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.

Adams did not rule out adjusting the executive order.

"What Governor Abbott has done in his total, reckless disregard for using people as pawns, he has shifted. And he just wants to create chaos. And we can't be so stagnant that we don't respond to his shift … We put out an executive order. If he's shifting, we're going to shift."

Lisa Zornberg, Adams’ chief counsel, on Tuesday called Texas’ bus caravans “bonkers,” for not coordinating with the city.

In a year-end roundup, Abbott's office announced that Texas had bused over 33,600 migrants to New York City since August 2022.

Adams on Tuesday yet again called for the rescinding of New York City's only-in-the-nation right to shelter, which guarantees room and board for anyone in need. The right had existed since the early 1980s and applied almost exclusively to the traditional homeless population. But since the crisis began, migrants have made up an increasing amount of the shelter population.

Also on Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she supports the mayor's position.

"We do not have the ability to house the entire world, 8 billion people. Under the way that the situation is set up, the right to shelter, if they all wanted to come to New York under the rules that are set up and being interpreted as they are, that means, that the City of New York would have to house 8 billion people," she said at a news conference.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.