NYC’s $12 billion migrant crisis complicated by surge of asylum-seeking families with children

NEW YORK — The flow of migrants into New York City includes a large number of families with children, adding another layer of complexity to a situation Mayor Eric Adams says is already at the breaking point.

New York City, Adams said Wednesday, is on track to spend a staggering $12 billion on housing and caring for migrants by mid-2025. The influx of children, just weeks before schools are due to reopen, will require the city to act on multiple fronts — from preparing local public schools for their arrival to providing emergency housing that keeps children out of large group settings.

Last month, the number of families with children in the city’s care was growing by roughly 47 households each day, according to data provided by the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget. That figure had more than tripled since the city budget was adopted earlier this summer, when 15 families with children were being added to the daily count.

“When you talk about families with children, which we see is the substantial increase that we’re getting, the largest percentage — everything changes,” Adams said at a news conference at City Hall.

“We can’t use the congregate shelter settings,” he added. “You have to make sure they are in school, that they have all the proper school supplies that come with it. So it’s just an entire new dynamic that we have to do when we continue to get a large proportion of our migrant asylum-seekers families with children.”

An estimated 18,000 newly arrived students had enrolled in city public schools by the end of last school year, city data show. The mayor declined to gauge how many school-aged children could enroll this fall, saying the number is “continuing, growing and moving.”

Adams said there’s still a shortage of the “ideal number” of Spanish-speaking teachers in local schools, but insisted Schools Chancellor David Banks and the education department will be able to get migrant students what they need.

“We’re going to step up to the plate, like we have,” he said.

His remarks came a day after Adams said the city may be too cash-strapped to hire more bilingual teachers who speak students’ home language, suggesting the migrant crisis was not just a problem for the mayor but for the city as a whole to address.

Adams renewed that call Wednesday, encouraging New Yorkers to teach English as volunteers through after-school programs and at churches.

“We need that help, and we have a lot of Spanish-speaking residents in the city,” he said.

Principals will likely find some relief through recent changes to the city’s primary school funding formula. The city is sending an additional $90 million through the Fair Student Funding formula that prioritizes schools with students in temporary housing — including the migrants in shelters — and high concentrations of children in poverty or learning English.

But city officials did not say if a $2,000 per student boost for schools receiving six or more homeless children that was allocated last year would be renewed for the next term.

The city is also turning to the State Education Department to assist asylum-seeking students, but that help is unlikely to be financial.

Adams’ chief of staff and city education officials met with state leaders Monday to discuss “the arrival of large numbers of asylum seeker and migrant students,” according to a joint statement from Chancellor Lester Young and Commissioner Betty Rosa.

“While the Department cannot provide districts with information on individual prospective students and unfortunately does not exercise control over the availability of emergency funds to support an unanticipated increase in student population, we offer a wealth of resources on instructional practice and policy implementation,” said Young and Rosa.

State education spokeswoman Keshia Clukey said the department has offered to connect school districts interested in enrolling migrant students with New York City education officials looking for other school systems to place families.