Mayor Adams rips ‘hypocritical’ critics of his right-to-shelter rollback, vows legal war on upstate leaders resisting migrant transfers

Mayor Adams — who’s under heavy scrutiny over his handling of the city’s migrant crisis — fired back in all directions Thursday, blasting critics on the left as “hypocritical” for questioning his weakening of a local shelter law while vowing to wage legal war on Republicans resisting his plan to send asylum seekers upstate.

Late Wednesday, Adams issued an executive order suspending parts of the city’s longstanding right-to-shelter law, including a provision that bars the city from placing families with children in dorm-style shelters. Many of Adams’ fellow Democrats rapidly ripped the move as dangerous and pointed to data showing that sheltering kids in such settings increases the likelihood of sexual abuse.

In a Thursday morning press conference, Adams defended his order as necessary due to an expected surge in migrant arrivals. He also claimed his critics have no right to lambaste the order because they haven’t participated in homeless outreach efforts.

“You can’t all of a sudden be so vociferous,” he said at City Hall. “When it is time to get people the services they need, you’re nowhere there.”

“It’s just, I think it’s hypocritical,” he added.

Council Speaker Adrienne Adams was among a large chorus of Democratic lawmakers who derided the order, telling reporters at City Hall later Thursday she found it “arbitrary and capricious” — a term often used in lawsuits seeking to reverse government policy.

Asked if the Council will take legal action against the mayor’s move, the speaker said: “This order took place very quickly, with really no notice, so we’re exploring all of our options.”

Back at his press conference, Mayor Adams took aim at Rockland County Executive Ed Day and Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus, both Republicans who have sought to use emergency powers and lawsuits to prevent the city from relocating hundreds of migrants to their jurisdictions.

“We’re going to challenge all of the legal obstacles that are attempting to be placed in our way,” the mayor said of the attempts by Day and Neuhaus to block the migrant transports. “It would set a bad precedent.”

Later in the day, the first two buses carrying migrants from the city arrived at the Crossroads Hotel in the Orange County city of Newburgh. The roughly 50 asylum seekers onboard were welcomed by a small group of local advocates carrying signs with slogans like “Humanity Knows No Borders.”

Neuhaus claimed in a Facebook post that Adams administration officials had assured him the night before that no migrants would be sent “until further notice.”

“We have learned that you cannot trust the words of New York City’s mayor. We are not done fighting this,” wrote Neuhaus, who’s asking a court for a temporary restraining order to block the city from sending more migrants to his county.

Adams’ administration was supposed to start sending migrants upstate Wednesday, but called it off after Rockland County officials secured a temporary restraining order against one of the two hotels the city had planned to rent out for asylum seekers.

For now, Adams spokesman Fabien Levy said the city’s planned migrant transports to Rockland are “on hold” because of the restraining order, which is set to remain in effect at least through Monday.

On top of pledging to fight him in court, Adams slammed Day, the Rockland County executive, for having a “record of being antisemitic” and making “racist comments.” The mayor did not elaborate, but Day has baselessly claimed migrants bound for his county could be “child rapists.”

Back on the right-to-shelter front, Adams said it was “a difficult decision” to suspend the rules, which have been in place for decades.

He told reporters he had to do it, though, because the city barely has room to house the nearly 40,000 migrants who are already in its shelter and emergency hotel systems. Most of them are fleeing poverty and violence in their Latin American home countries and ended up in New York after crossing the U.S. southern border in hopes of seeking asylum.

Meantime, the city’s pace of arrivals is only expected to accelerate when Title 42, a federal border enforcement policy that has stemmed a wave of southern border migration, expires Friday. Without Title 42, the city could start seeing thousands of migrants arrive per day, Adams said, adding that if his administration does not give itself the ability to house some of them — including kids — in nonconventional settings, they could end up living on the streets.

“This was a hard decision, but it’s the right decision,” he said. “And no one seems to care, but I care.”

Adams also suggested congregate shelters aren’t that bad.

“My son went to college in a dorm — he didn’t have his own kitchen and bathroom and he still did a great job,” Adams said, referencing amenities required in shelter units for families with kids under the now-suspended right-to-shelter rule.

Christine Quinn, a former City Council speaker who runs Win, the city’s largest family shelter provider, dismissed Adams’ analogy about his son and said the problem lies in the fact that children have been sexually abused in the past when the city has put them in congregate shelters.

“Dorm rooms for teenagers in college are different than congregate shelters for children who are fleeing violence and sex trafficking and totalitarian regimes,” she told the Daily News. “The trauma and the PTSD involved in a congregate setting is very different than a college experience.”

In addition to lifting the ban on putting kids in congregate shelters, Adams’ order suspended some eviction protections for migrants in emergency hotels and a rule that requires the city to find shelter beds for families by 4 a.m. if they show up at intake by 10 p.m. the previous evening. The order will stay in effect for five days, unless Adams extends it, which he indicated he will if the Title 42 expiration results in a massive surge in migrant arrivals.

Instead of rolling back protections, Quinn said there are mechanisms Adams can use to free up space for migrants in the city homeless shelter system, including scrapping a rule that requires New Yorkers to live in a shelter for 90 days before they can apply for a low-income housing voucher.

“The mayor has tools in his toolbox that he is not utilizing,” she said.

Quinn’s sentiment was shared by Speaker Adams, who said it should be a top priority to find ways to move New Yorkers living in shelters into permanent housing.

“There needs to be more questions asked about why this administration refuses to employ these more proven solutions that are available to the city,” she said. “The Council has sought to partner in achieving this for months. Why has there not been more collaborative and coordinated planning for this moment with those of us willing to be helpful?”