NYC migrant crisis can't be shouldered alone, mayor says

New York City’s offramp from shouldering the asylum-seeking migrant crisis relies on major changes in federal policies, new arrivals being relocated to as-yet intransigent outside jurisdictions, and ending the weekly flow of thousands of migrants into the city, Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday.

With little progress on those fronts, the city is virtually alone in bearing the financial cost — with no end in sight — for sheltering, feeding and caring for most of the more than 81,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since last spring.

On Thursday, Adams unveiled the city’s $107 billion budget for the fiscal year beginning Saturday, setting aside $2.9 billion for migrant care.

“We’re not going to ever say, ‘we’re not going to provide some level of care to people that come to the city,’ ” Adams said.

More than half of other New York counties, including Long Island, have resisted and in some cases even outlawed Adams’ attempts to relocate migrants to those locations.

The City Council speaker, Adrienne Adams, called the status quo “tremendously unfair to the people of the City of New York.”

“It is a situation that New York is in because we’ve always welcomed everyone with open arms,” said the speaker, like Adams, a Democrat, who isn’t related to the mayor. She added: “New York has taken on the burden of a nation.”

Councilman Joe Borelli, one of the council’s few Republicans, said he's concerned about migrant funding longterm, particularly since future years’ budgets are forecast to have deficits totaling billions.

“It’s disappointing to hear that there seems to be no offramp in the foreseeable future,” he said.

The city is under a decades-old, rare-in-the-nation judicial mandate to shelter anyone in need — which the Adams administration is seeking court permission to relax.

Until then, the city will keep providing shelter to all.

“We’re going to follow the law,” Adams said, but “we’re going to make sure that we look at every opportunity to stop this flow.”

The Adams administration is forecasting the cost of paying for the crisis will exceed $4.3 billion by next July. The $1.4 billion spent this year is money he said that could have gone to fund other priorities: “This comes out of New Yorkers."

Ultimately, the mayor said, the federal government must provide money and help manage the flow.

“The feds have to step up,” the mayor said. 

The speaker agreed: “There are no ifs ands or buts about it. They have to.”

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

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