Local officials are pursuing legal action in order to halt plans from New York City Mayor Eric Adams to send asylum-seekers to nearby Suffolk County. It’s the latest county in the state to push back as the city, in the midst of an ongoing crisis, attempts to transfer migrants to neighboring jurisdictions.
“New York City made the conscious decision to call itself a sanctuary city,” Presiding Officer Kevin McCaffrey of the Suffolk County Legislature said at a press conference on Sunday. “Suffolk County did not.”
Thousands of people are now seeking asylum in the U.S. after a pandemic-era measure — which previously helped quell these numbers — expired earlier this month. A large chunk of these people are flocking to New York City because of the legal protections it provides to migrants as a sanctuary city.
But sheltering and providing resources to this influx of newcomers is set to cost billions of dollars. And, with the city now overwhelmed with these numbers, the Adams administration is pushing to send some of these asylum-seekers to other parts of the state.
Some of these neighboring counties in New York — which do not have the same policies or stances toward immigrants as the city — are doing everything they can to stop this from happening. Lawmakers in Orange and Rockland counties are attempting legal action to stop migrants from entering their communities.
McCaffrey said Suffolk County will be enlisting special counsel to explore legal options. The Republican legislator detailed conversations he had with Suffolk County hotel owners who relayed that Adams is contacting them on whether they have space to house migrants.
“The residents in Suffolk County have already dealt with the financial costs of the pandemic, and the historic inflation, because of the failed policies of the state and federal government,” he said.
Mayoral spokesman Fabien Levy told Gothamist the city has already opened more than 150 emergency sites to serve the nearly 70,000 asylum-seekers who have arrived in the city.
“Every day, we receive hundreds of additional asylum-seekers and we are out of space. New York City has done and will continue to do its part, but we need counties, cities, and towns across the state to do their part as well, especially when New York City is willing to pay for shelter, food, and more,” he said. “In most areas, we’re not even asking localities to help manage one-fourth of 1% of the asylum-seekers that have arrived in New York City, and again with New York covering the costs.”
On Sunday, Adams told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that New York City is “paying for a national problem.”
“We have 108,000 cities, villages, towns,” Adams said. “If everyone takes a small portion of the [migrants] and if it’s coordinated at the border to ensure those who are coming here into this country in a lawful manner, is actually moved throughout the entire country, it is not a burden on one city.”
McCaffrey said that these actions are not an anti-immigration stance and that he recognizes that the nation “is a country of immigrants.”
“If we are to maintain the greatness of being the greatest nation the world has ever known, we must continue to be a nation of rules and laws,” he said.
This story has been updated with comment from a Mayor Eric Adams spokesman.
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