The Next Steps for New York's Migrants
Warmer weather signals the return of cruise season, which means Wilmer Barrios is getting ready to move for the fourth time since he arrived in New York from Venezuela last year.
As I wrote in The Wall Street Journal, city officials last week dismantled the 1,000 beds they set up in the cavernous waiting area of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, where the 44-year-old has been staying since January.
Many migrants there were housed at a Midtown Manhattan hotel before calling the cruise terminal their temporary home. They will next be relocated to two office buildings, including one in Times Square that until recently housed the country’s busiest McDonald’s restaurant. The city’s $3.3 million contract with Ports America Inc. to use the cruise terminal expires April 3, records show.
Repurposing office buildings is the latest turn in New York City’s efforts to care for an estimated 54,000 migrants, some of the roughly 1 million people who were released in the U.S. after crossing the southern border illegally in 2022. Many are seeking asylum, and some rode buses to New York and other northern cities—trips sponsored by the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona.
I’ve written several articles over the past nine months about the influx of asylum seekers to the city. Mayor Eric Adams has been scrambling for months, trying everything from a tent city to the world’s tallest Holiday Inn to provide shelter and resources for the newcomers. New York City has a right to shelter established by court cases, which requires officials to provide a safe place to sleep for anyone who shows up.
The migrants I spoke with in Brooklyn — alongside photographer Oscar Castillo — said they have shuffled around to multiple locations after long journeys from Central and South America. They are seeking work authorizations, and some men have found under-the-table jobs in construction or delivery.
People at the cruise terminal were told in recent weeks where they would be going next—either Bushwick or the Candler Building on West 42nd Street, within sight of Times Square and next to Madame Tussauds wax museum. David Ramos, who came from Nicaragua, said he had hoped to be assigned to Times Square, which is closer to a job doing food delivery that he has found on the Upper East Side.
The city is now in talks with houses of worship to shelter hundreds of people in sanctuaries and parish halls, according to people familiar with the matter. It’s a revival of a program that started when Ed Koch was mayor, but fell by the wayside under the Bloomberg administration.
In the meantime, Adams is still pushing for state money to defray the estimated $4.2 billion cost of shelter migrants through next summer. State lawmakers blew past the Friday deadline, with talks mostly focused on housing plans and amending the bail law.
THE QUESTION: Who was governor for the latest New York State budget in history?
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THE LAST ANSWER: The Long Island towns of Hempstead, Brookhaven, Islip and Oyster Bay all have more residents than Buffalo, the second largest city in New York.