What to Know
- Hundreds of immigrants have been sent to New York City from Texas with paperwork that diverts them to places where they cannot receive shelter or crucial legal mail.
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Adriano Espaillat sent a letter Friday to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking what the department was doing to ensure asylum seekers were sent to the right places.
- This comes just after Texas Governor Greg Abbott said his state would start sending buses full of asylum seekers to New York City seeking to change the Biden Administration’s immigration policies.
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NEW YORK – Some of the top members of New York City’s congressional delegation demanded answers from the Department of Homeland Security, after our sister station NBC 4 New York reported that migrants were being sent to the city with erroneous documents that they were left without shelter and at risk of missing key asylum appointments.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Adriano Espaillat sent a letter Friday to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking what the department was doing to ensure asylum seekers were sent to the right places and then given the opportunity adequately defend their cases in court.
“We are writing to you today regarding the transfer of asylum seekers from the border states of Arizona and Texas to New York City. According to recent reports, asylum seekers who are loaded onto buses from Arizona and Texas receive official documentation from the Department Homeland Security indicating social service organizations, rather than the New York City Department of Homeless Services, Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH) intake center, located at 151 East 151st Street in The Bronx,” Ocasio-Cortez and Espaillat wrote, citing specifically a July 29 NBC 4 New York report.
As NBCC reported, perhaps hundreds of people were sent to the city with documents listing destinations where, in fact, they could not receive shelter. Weeks later, crucial documents for those people began arriving at those locations, meaning many were at risk of missing crucial court dates.
In at least one case now under investigation, an officer sent an asylum seeker to New York City with documents that had a completely false address and phone number, signed with what it seemed to be a drawing of a face with its tongue hanging out.
“With recent news that the Governor of Texas bused more asylum seekers to New York City, We are concerned that if this matter is not addressed in a timely manner, thousands of migrants will continue to be misled and denied the resources they are legally owed, such as access to food and housing,” they added in the letter.
Ocasio-Cortez and Espaillat requested written responses within 20 days about what DHS would do to ensure that asylum seekers have a chance to appear before a judge, and how it would protect people who missed deadlines. court because your paperwork was sent to a place where it shouldn’t have been.
IMMIGRATION CRISIS IN NEW YORK
The federal government is sending asylum seekers to New York City in hopes of a better life, but the system has left many on the streets and struggling.
IS DHSOn TURNING A BLIND EYE?
Ocasio-Cortez and Espaillat are not alone in their concern. Rep. Ritchie Torres, vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told NBC on Friday that DHS and its agencies need to provide some answers about discrepancies with the paperwork.
“We are going to investigate if in fact there is an established process. And if there is no established process, we have to create one. And if there is a process in place, there needs to be more oversight on ICE, on Border Patrol, on DHS officials,” he said in an interview in the Bronx.
“I find it outrageous that DHS seems to be sending people to the wrong addresses, to places in the middle of nowhere, like you’re dropping people off in the desert,” he said.
BUSES FILLED WITH IMMIGRANTS FROM TEXAS TO NEW YORK
early friday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said his state would start sending buses full of asylum seekers to New York City. (The state previously acknowledged that it was sending immigrants to Washington, DC in protest of the Biden Administration’s border policies.)
“In addition to Washington, DC, New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants, who can receive the abundance of city services and housing Mayor Eric Adams has boasted of within the sanctuary city,” he said. Abbott in a statement sent to National early Friday morning, as the first busload of asylum seekers arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Abbott and Adams have been locked in a war of words since July 19, when Adams issued a statement alleging that Texas and Arizona were sending immigrants to New York City and overtaxing the city’s shelter system. Both states denied it at the time.
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