(The Center Square) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams says the cost of sheltering tens of thousands of asylum seekers across the city could rise to $12 billion in coming years as he pushes for more help from the state and federal governments.
In a televised address on Wednesday, Adams laid out updated figures the asylum seeker crisis will cost New York City’s taxpayers over the next two fiscal years without policy changes and additional financial support. He said New York City “has been left to pick up the pieces of a broken immigration system.”
“Our compassion may be limitless, but our resources are not,” Adams said in his remarks on Wednesday. “This is the budgetary reality we are facing if we don’t get the additional support we need.”
Over 100,000 migrants have come through New York City in the past year amid a surge of immigration along the southern border. The surge coincided with the end of the pandemic-era Title 42 policy that required migrants to stay in Mexico while requesting asylum, which expired in May.
At least 144,571 migrants were encountered crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in June, averaging more than 4,800 crossings daily, according to the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
Republican governors in border states have been critical of the Biden administration’s response to the surge. They’ve been sending groups of undocumented immigrants to Democratic strongholds in Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston and Chicago.
New York City is providing housing, food and other necessities for more than 65,000 migrants, which Adams says has pushed the emergency shelter system to the brink.
The Adams administration has opened nearly 190 emergency shelters in city-owned buildings, hotels and other locations and 13 humanitarian relief centers serving as processing centers for new arrivals.
On Monday, Adams announced plans to build a new taxpayer-funded tent city on New York City’s Randall Island to house about 2,000 men.
The Adams administration says it costs about $385 a night to house and feed a migrant family.
More than $140 million in federal funds have been allocated to New York City to support migrants, but Adams says that isn’t enough to cover the cost of caring for migrants arriving in the thousands.
“New Yorkers did not create an international humanitarian crisis, but our city’s residents have been left to deal with this crisis almost entirely on our own,” he said.
