White House officials meet with Mayor Eric Adams to collaborate on asylum seeker crisis response
NEW YORK -- White House officials met with Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday to find ways to collaborate on a response to the ongoing asylum seeker crisis in the city.
Earlier, members of New York's congressional delegation toured The Roosevelt Hotel center in Manhattan where recently dozens of people had to sleep outside because the shelter was full.
Last week, some asylum seekers were temporarily allowed inside, while others were sent to a church in Long Island City.
"These families left their countries with their entire families, many of them facing persecution, violence in their own country," said Rep. Nydia Velázquez. "And it is our duty to provide."
"They are grateful to have warm food. They have the cafeteria open so they have hot meals. They have water. They have health care," added City Council Member Julie Won.
Preparations are underway to house families coming from the border on Randall's Island and at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens.
"If we provide Temporary Protected Status to these families who are here and want to work, we will then facilitate the transfer of these families that are here to other sites," said Velázquez.
Daniel Arias and his family from the Dominican Republic are staying at the Roosevelt with hundreds of other asylum seekers. Arias said he's eager to work and has an OSHA training card.
"Here in this country, I'm training to be an electrician. It gives me permission to work," Arias said in Spanish.
"What's at the heart of all of this, for me, is what is more American than the right to work?" Mayor Adams said on CBS Mornings.
Meanwhile, the City Council Committee on General Welfare and Immigration held a hearing Thursday on how the mayor's 60-day shelter limit will impact the right-to-shelter law.
"The day before the first asylum buses came, there were over 50,000 New Yorkers already in the shelter system, with an average time over a year," Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said.
On CBS Mornings, Adams said the asylum seeker crisis is costing the city about $383 per family per night. With 57,000 asylum seekers and counting in the system, that's $3.6 billion for the year.
Adams said the projected cost of caring for asylum seekers over three years has ballooned to an eye-popping $12 billion. That's nearly equal to the FDNY, DSNY and Parks Department budgets combined.