Eric Adams: NYC to house asylum-seeking migrants in tents

Mayor Eric Adams plans for New York City to pitch giant beachfront tents and put out cots to temporarily house thousands of asylum-seeking migrants from Latin America being bused north by Republican governors of border states protesting how President Joe Biden is handling immigration.

More than 10,000 migrants have arrived from Arizona and Texas since the spring, many via the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, and the city’s homeless shelter system has been pushed to the brink trying to accommodate the new arrivals into the city, which under a 1981 legal settlement must provide shelter to anyone seeking it.

So far, just one location for the tents has been publicized — Orchard Beach in the Bronx, to open in the coming weeks to serve adults — and a second location is still being finalized, the Adams administration said Thursday in a news release. More specifics weren’t publicly disclosed.

“More than 100 years ago, Ellis Island opened its doors to welcome in those ‘yearning to breathe free.’ Now, more than ever, it’s clear that we are again dealing with a humanitarian crisis created by human hands. While other leaders have abdicated their moral duty to support arriving asylum-seekers, New York City refuses to do so,” Adams was quoted as saying in a news release. “This is not an everyday homelessness crisis, but a humanitarian crisis that requires a different approach."

The release says hundreds of migrants are arriving each day, and that buses streaming into the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan would soon be directed to so-called humanitarian emergency response and relief centers, if the buses don’t go there first. The stays at the centers are expected to span 24 to 96 hours.

Earlier this week, a migrant mother of two children apparently killed herself in a city shelter, having arrived in May from Colombia.

And as the city’s homeless shelters across the five boroughs have filled up, the administration has considered a range of possibilities, including putting the migrants into summer camps and onto cruise ships.

Advocates such as the Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless were cool to the idea of sheltering migrants in tents. In a statement Thursday, the organizations said: “We are deeply concerned with any scenario in which families with children would be relegated to congregate settings. This practice, which has been widely condemned for its adverse and dangerous impact on this uniquely vulnerable population, is already subject to legal prohibitions.

“That said, we remain willing to work with the City on a viable solution that satisfies New York’s legal and moral obligation to provide safe and adequate shelter to all who seek it, including asylum-seekers.

Offered free trips in Arizona and Texas paid for by taxpayers, the migrants are arriving in blue state jurisdictions such as New York City and Washington, D.C., sent by the Republican governors seeking to pressure Biden to tighten border controls. Recently, the Florida governor sent a plane of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

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