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Mayor Adams declares state of emergency to respond to migrant crisis

New York City Mayor Eric Adams delivers remarks during a press conference held at City Hall in New York, where declared a state of emergency as the city struggles to respond to an influx of tens of thousands of migrants from Latin America, on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. Adams said in the speech that the city was preparing to spend $1 billion on its response and called for federal and state funding to help pay for housing and services for the busloads of migrants who have strained the city
New York City Mayor Eric Adams delivers remarks during a press conference held at City Hall in New York, where declared a state of emergency as the city struggles to respond to an influx of tens of thousands of migrants from Latin America, on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. Adams said in the speech that the city was preparing to spend $1 billion on its response and called for federal and state funding to help pay for housing and services for the busloads of migrants who have strained the city's homeless shelter system. (Dave Sanders/The New York Times) (DAVE SANDERS)
By Emma G. Fitzsimmons New York Times

NEW YORK – Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency for New York City on Friday as the city struggles to respond to an influx of tens of thousands of migrants from Latin America.

Adams said in a speech at City Hall that the city was preparing to spend $1 billion on its response and called for federal and state funding to help pay for housing and services for the busloads of migrants who have strained the city’s homeless shelter system.

“We need help, and we need it now,” Adams said.

Adams, a Democrat who took office in January, said the city was moving forward with plans to build a tent intake center on Randalls Island, in the East River just off Manhattan.

City officials are also negotiating with cruise ship companies to house migrants on board a ship.

Adams said that the city has been overwhelmed by the roughly 17,000 migrants who have arrived since April and that he expected as many as 100,000 to arrive eventually. At least nine more buses arrived Thursday.

The city had set up 42 emergency shelters and enrolled 5,000 children in schools, the mayor said. But he said the city urgently needed more help to provide services to migrants.

Declaring a state of emergency would allow city officials to move more quickly to provide services, Adams said. He said the city was also looking for ways to send some migrants to other cities.

“A city recovering from an ongoing global pandemic is being overwhelmed by a humanitarian crisis,” he said, adding that New York was “on the edge of a precipice.”

Adams has received criticism over his response to the crisis from homeless advocates and City Council members who disagree with efforts to house migrants in tents or on ships. They have called for empty hotels to be used and for shelter residents to be moved into permanent housing as quickly as possible.

City officials are examining housing up to 2,700 migrants on a cruise ship and are in discussions with three cruise companies, including Carnival Cruise Line, Frank Carone, the mayor’s chief of staff, said in a brief interview at City Hall.