NEW YORK – For the second time in three days, New York City could rethink its plan to house immigrants arriving from the border.
After opening several tents on Orchard Beach in the Bronx, Mayor Eric Adams announced the move to Randall’s Island, which is more accessible.
But on Wednesday city council members proposed a new approach: housing asylum seekers in hotels closed and empty by the pandemic.
It is in such hotels that the New York City Council suggests hosting thousands of asylum-seeking migrants sent to New York from Texas.
“Obviously, this is not the ideal situation. The city is in a very difficult situation, we have over 15,000 people who have come to New York seeking asylum. We have a responsibility to host them, “said councilor Diana Ayala.
It is an alternative to the controversial project of the open-air tent announced by the mayor, which after many objections and fears of flooding due to rain, has been moved to a new location. Vice President Ayala said that any option involving a tent is not humane.
“The places that have been identified so far are really inhumane and unacceptable,” he said.
City council says there are 10 large free hotels in Manhattan that could become temporary shelters for immigrants. The hotels have between 1,025 and 478 rooms and the immigrants stayed there between 48 and 96 hours before being transferred elsewhere.
“If you have specific hotels you’re talking about, I’m looking forward to meeting with councilor Adrienne Adams, our speaker, and finding those solutions,” Mayor Adams said on a political talk show Wednesday night. “We have been very focused on this crisis of thousands of people coming to our city for help, and we have responded to that and I can’t wait to talk to them and see the plan they are coming up with.”
When asked for a list of specific hotels, the city council did not immediately provide it to our sister station NBC New York.
Converting the hotels into admissions centers would cost the city about $ 15 million a month, NBC was told, which is roughly the same amount of money the city would spend on the tent city.
Whatever the plan is, New York City would need help from the federal government.
Rafael Pujols gives us the details of Mayor Eric Adams’ plan.
