Officials in two New York counties have denounced Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams for relocating illegal immigrants to their communities and have declared an emergency over the situation.
New York City has become one of a number of receiving points for illegal immigrants being bused from Texas border communities to other parts of the country. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been sending busloads of illegals to other states as a way to alleviate Texas’s own burden caring for and housing them.
On Friday, Adams announced his own plan to bus them out of New York City and into neighboring communities.
“Despite calling on the federal government for a national decompression strategy since last year, and for a decompression strategy across the state, New York City has been left without the necessary support to manage this crisis,” Adams said on Friday. “With a vacuum of leadership, we are now being forced to undertake our own decompression strategy.”
Adams’s “decompression strategy” calls for sending illegal immigrants away from his city to two hotels, located in Orangeburg in Rockland County, and Orange Lake in Orange County respectively. Adams’s administration will provide up to four months’ worth of shelter, food, counseling, and other services at these hotels.
County officials in Rockland and Orange County have both declared emergencies over New York City’s “decompression” strategy.
As he announced his emergency declaration on Friday, Republican Rockland County Executive Ed Day said he had learned New York City would be relocating 340 adult males to Orangeburg.
“This County already has a housing crisis due to the lack thereof and lack of affordable housing options,” Day said on Friday. “This crisis is so extreme that Rockland has been unprecedently deputized by the State of New York to take over Building and Fire Code enforcement in the Village of Spring Valley. Sending busloads of people to this County that does not have the infrastructure to care for them will only compound that issue tenfold while straining support systems that are already at a breaking point.”
The Rockland County emergency declaration prohibits other municipalities from bringing and housing people in the County and bars hotels and motels from housing illegal immigrants without a license. The order also requires any municipalities that may bring illegals into Rockland County to ensure they will fully cover the costs for them.
Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus announced his own emergency declaration on Monday.
Neuhaus declared that there’s “no reason to believe that these migrants or asylum seekers will leave Orange County” once New York City stops financially supporting their relocation after four months. He also said Orange County’s Department of Social Services has no legal basis to eventually take on responsibility for the arriving illegal immigrants because of their age and immigration status.
“Local zoning codes do not allow the use of temporary residence hotels or other temporary residence facilities for use as long-term residential housing and therefore New York City’s transportation of migrants and asylum seekers to Orange County for that purpose is illegal,” the Orange County emergency declaration added.
Like Rockland County, the Orange County emergency declaration prohibits hotels, motels, and other short-term rental facilities from taking in illegal immigrants arriving from New York City.
NYC’s ‘Sanctuary City’ Status
Abbott’s strategy of busing illegal immigrants away from Texas has targeted self-described “sanctuary cities,” which are cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities that might arrest or deport illegal immigrants.
While New York City is one such “sanctuary city,” Adams has criticized Abbott for sending illegal immigrants to his city as well as to Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, and Washington.
“Not only is this behavior morally bankrupt and devoid of any concern for the well-being of asylum seekers, but it is also impossible to ignore the fact that Abbott is now targeting five cities run by Black mayors,” Adams said of the Texas governor’s busing strategy. “Put plainly, Abbott is using this crisis to hurt Black-run cities.”
Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, and Washington are self-described sanctuary cities, just like New York City.
Abbott has said his busing strategy has put a spotlight on the hypocrisy of sanctuary cities when they balk at the prospect of having to actually take in illegals.
Day joined in accusing New York City of hypocrisy for sending them to Rockland County.
“We have a situation where the Mayor of New York decided he wanted [to be] a sanctuary [city], and he got it. And now he realized he bit off more than he can chew and he can’t handle it,” Day told Fox News on Monday.
NTD News reached out to Adams’s office for comment but did not receive a response by press time.