New York City Mayor Eric Adams gave his most ominous prediction yet for the fate of the Big Apple, which is grappling with the influx of more than 110,000 migrants so far.
"Let me tell you something, New Yorkers. Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don't see an ending to this. I don't see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City," Adams said during a Town Hall meeting on the Upper West Side on Wednesday. "We're getting 10,000 migrants a month.... Now we're getting people from all over the globe have made their minds up that they're going to come through the southern part of the border and come into New York City."
Separately Wednesday, Adams announced the transition of an emergency respite site into a new Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center (HERRC) at Austell Place in Long Island City as the number of migrants currently in the city’s care approaches 60,000, and as more than 110,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since last spring.
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"As asylum seekers have continued to arrive in New York City at an average rate of more than 2,400 every week, conditions on the ground required that the city transition the site to a large-scale congregate setting for single men," the mayor's office said in a press release. "The humanitarian relief center will start by providing shelter for up to 330 single men, but, once expanded to full capacity, the site will host a total of almost 1,000 asylum seekers."
The expansion of the site makes it the city's 16th large humanitarian relief center as part of the more than 200 shelter sites the city is operating, Health and Human Services Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said at a separate news conference Wednesday.
As of Sept. 3, she said the city had over 112,300 people in its care, including over 59,700 asylum seekers. Over 10,100 asylum seekers have come through the city intake center since September 2022. The city has opened 206 sites, including 15 humanitarian relief centers. Last week from August 28 to Sept. 3, more than 27,000 new asylum seekers entered the city's care.
"Hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive to our city every day and our heads are barely being kept above water," Williams-Isom said. "There are solutions to this emergency. We need expedited work authorization, additional financial support, a federal declaration of emergency, a national and a state wide decompression strategy to relieve the pressure that we are feeling here in New York City. There are solutions here. The status quo is not working, and New Yorkers are demanding that we do more."
