(The Center Square) — New York City will stop providing taxpayer-funded legal advice and other services for newly arriving migrants, the Adams administration said, after the state balked at providing additional funding to the city.
In a statement, Mayor Eric Adams’ administration said beginning June 30, the city will no longer provide case management services — including assistance finding legal aid, getting federal work permits and jobs and enrolling in English language classes — at migrant shelters across the city.
“We are not out of the woods yet and still have over 38,000 migrants in our care,” Spokeswoman Liz Garcia said in the statement. “Still, the state recently decided not to allocate any new funding to New York City for migrant-related costs, and, as a result, the case management services that we have been offering at migrant shelters will no longer be available. We are disappointed in the state’s decision.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul rejected Adams’ request for another $1 billion in the recently signed $253 billion state budget to cover the Big Apple’s migrant costs.
A Hochul spokesperson countered that the number of weekly migrant arrivals in New York has declined by 95% over the past year and said the city still has more than $2 billion from the state “that they have yet to draw from, which is why this year’s budget did not include additional funding.”
“The governor will continue partnering with City Hall to address their responsibility to provide shelter to new arrivals,” Hochul spokesman Avi Small said in a statement.
New York City has spent an estimated $8 billion on housing and other costs for over 230,000 migrants who have arrived since early 2022, with about 37,000 individuals still under its care, according to the Adams administration. City officials say they’ve already spent the $2 billion provided by the state.
The city has also seen a federal funding cut, with the Trump administration clawing back $188 million in federal grants in April to cover migrant costs. That drew a legal challenge from the city, which alleges the Trump administration “illegally” pulled back the money.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Trump administration withdrew the Federal Emergency Management Agency grants because the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which she alleged was using the Roosevelt Hotel as its “base of operations,” was benefiting from the federal funding.
Earlier this month, the Adams administration announced that it was closing several migrant “welcome centers” across the city, which it also attributed to the lack of new state funding and declining numbers of migrants arriving in the city.
