Mayor Eric Adams wants to create new agency to cope with influx of asylum seekers
NEW YORK - With the number of asylum seekers coming to New York City nearing 50,000, Mayor Eric Adams has laid out a new blueprint for coping with a problem that has created a humanitarian crisis.
Adams intends to:
- Create a new agency devoted to asylum seekers
- Build a new 24/7 arrival center
- Launch a job training program with SUNY Sullivan
Adams is calling his new blueprint "the next phase" in the city's response to the tens of thousands of asylum seekers that have made their way to the Big Apple.
But one thing that's not included in his "next phase" is a way to get the federal government to reimburse the city. The mayor's budget director says he's not hopeful the feds will come through.
CBS2's Marcia Kramer asked Adams about that.
"Since the city is going to have to pay a bigger amount of the share of the costs of these programs, [do] other city services have be cut in order for the city to afford to deal with the with this crisis?" Kramer asked.
"We spent over $600, over $650 million, I think $640-654 million from July to February. When you look at that number, that's an astronomical number. It's estimated that this fiscal year, next is going to be $4.2 billion. Those are real numbers. And I said this before, and I'm going to say it again, every service in the city is going to be impacted," Adams said.
Grim words from Adams, who in just a few months is going to have to cobble together a new budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 that will apparently force the city to swallow a far bigger share of the costs of housing, schooling and resettling the tens of thousands of asylum seekers here now, or expected to arrive here in the future.
READ MORE: Mayor Eric Adams attends food and clothing drive for asylum seekers on Lower East Side
"We can not do this alone, and we have been doing it alone thus far, and that must stop," Adams said.
Though federal dollars are in short supply, that didn't stop the mayor from inviting an asylum seeker from Venezuela to help make his case.
"All I want to ask is for the federal government to speed up the asylum process so that we can finally settle here," he said.
The mayor's plans now include:
- Moving arrival operations from the Port Authority Bus Terminal to a new 24/7 center that has yet to be determined
- A pilot program with a Catskill branch of the state university to provide housing and job training for asylum seekers awaiting work papers
- Creating a new agency, the Office of Asylum Seeker Operations, to focus on resettlement, advocacy and legal services
The mayor was coy about where exactly he plans to resettle people.
"Please don't ask me which cities, because I don't need you running to the cities and stopping us from getting asylum seekers there. So we're not telling you. We'll tell you when they get there, you know, because I know you enjoy pitting cities against cities. So we're not giving you that information," Adams said.
The mayor said the asylum seekers would be sent to the pre-vetted cities and municipalities in New York and across the country.
It's unclear who will pay the resettlement costs.
