NYC migrant surge will strain ‘every’ city service, may lead to reopening Randalls Island tent: Mayor Adams

New Yorkers may soon see a reduction in “every” public service they rely on — from policing and sanitation to schooling and social programs — as the city scrambles to accommodate a massive new wave of Latin American migrants, Mayor Adams said Monday.

The latest influx, which started this week, may also force the city to reopen the controversial tent facility on Randalls Island it used to house migrants in, Adams told reporters at a press conference.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Adams said in the Bronx. “Every service we provide is going to be impacted by the influx of migrants in our city. It’s going to impact education, it’s going to impact the dollars we use to clean our streets, it’s going to impact our public safety, it’s going to impact us helping those long-term New Yorkers who are in need.”

The mayor delivered the dire warning a day after his office said more than 1,000 asylum seekers will start pouring into the city every week due to this Wednesday’s expected expiration of Title 42, a controversial policy the federal government has used on the southern border to quickly expel migrants who cross into the U.S. from Mexico.

Since the spring, more than 31,000 migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central and South America have arrived in New York after crossing the southern border in hopes of obtaining asylum, according to data provided by City Hall.

Though the pace of migrant arrivals slowed down in fall after a summer peak, the data show nearly 22,000 remain in homeless shelters or other forms of city-provided housing, costing the Adams’ administration hundreds of millions of dollars and putting intense strain on a range of municipal agencies.

Adams is seeking roughly $1 billion in reimbursements from President Biden’s Federal Emergency Management Agency for costs related to accommodating and providing services for the migrants. The mayor has also pleaded with Gov. Hochul’s administration for help.

But the mayor said at Monday’s news conference that the city has yet to get any commitments for assistance from either Biden or Hochul. He said that’s the reason his administration is being forced to look at the possibility of cutting various city services, as thousands more migrants could arrive in coming weeks.

“I’ve been frustrated throughout my life in public service. I’ve never been more frustrated than now,” Adams said in an unusually unvarnished public criticism of his fellow Democrats. “This is a national problem. ... This is unfair to all of our cities to have to go through this without any help from the national government and the state.”

Spokespeople for the White House did not return requests for comment.

Hochul disputed the notion that she hasn’t helped out. Her office said she has deployed nearly 800 National Guard troops to help with the city’s migrant response and launched legal assistance programs for migrants, to a combined tune of $10 million per month.

“We have been partnering with the mayor since the beginning,” the governor told reporters in Manhattan later in the day. “So, we’re going to continue working with the mayor.”

Though Title 42 isn’t set to expire until Wednesday, a spike in migrant arrivals could already be seen at Manhattan’s Port Authority Bus Terminal on Monday afternoon.

Adama Bah, an advocate who helps welcome migrants at the bus station, said about 250 migrants arrived on Monday alone. Most go straight into the city shelter system, Bah said.

It was not immediately clear how the reduction in city services threatened by Adams could play out.

Zach Iscol and Gary Jenkins, respectively Adams’ commissioners of the Departments of Emergency Management and Social Services, testified at a City Council hearing on migrant response Monday that they do not expect to see budget cuts at their agencies as part of any potential service reductions.

More than 64,000 people are sleeping in city homeless shelters on any given night, an all-time population high driven by the migrant influx. The city has also rented hundreds of hotel rooms across the five boroughs and opened four “Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers” to house migrants, but it’s unclear if it will be enough to accommodate a new surge of arrivals.

That being the case, Adams would not rule out reopening the migrant tent facility his administration operated for a short time on Randalls Island this fall.

“Nothing is off the table,” Adams said at his press conference when asked if he’s considering reopening the facility. “We don’t want to go back to what we had to use when there was a large influx, but leadership is doing difficult things and whatever I need to do to ensure that we are dealing with a crisis, I’m going to do.”

The Randalls tent camp, which had capacity for 1,000 people, was operational between Oct. 19 and Nov. 16 to house single migrant men.

The tent cost city taxpayers $650,000 just to build, but the Adams administration demobilized it due to a slowdown in migrants arriving at the time. City officials have refused to say how much it cost to operate the tent.

At Monday’s City Council hearing, Adams administration officials said the Randalls facility accommodated a total of 525 men before shutting down.

Some Council members at the hearing were flabbergasted why the administration packed up the tent last month even though there were indications that the migrant flow could start back up again.

Iscol, whose agency operated the tent, said it was impossible for his agency to know that migrant arrivals would resurge.

“It’s easy to Monday morning quarterback this,” he said.

Iscol also echoed the mayor in saying the administration is looking at rebuilding the tent. “There could be a need for another facility like Randalls,” he said.

Homeless advocates who were critical of the first iteration of the Randalls tent slammed Adams for entertaining reopening it, citing concerns about weather preparedness and access to services.

“This was a bad idea months ago, and it’s an even worse idea as the weather gets colder,” tweeted Jacquelyn Simone, policy director at the Coalition for the Homeless.

Also testifying at Monday’s Council hearing were Department of Education officials who said 9,800 new students living in shelters have enrolled in city public schools since this summer. The city does not ask students for immigration status, but most of those kids are presumed to be migrants, the officials testified.

The officials said the Department of Education has so far spent more than $60 million on accommodations for migrant students, including hiring translators.

Title 42, the border policy set to expire this week, was first implemented by former President Donald Trump’s administration and allowed federal authorities to expel migrants arriving at the southern border without considering them for asylum.

Biden’s administration has utilized Title 42, too, but a federal judge recently ruled that it is unconstitutional and ordered the government to let it expire, a decision hailed by immigration advocates who have excoriated the policy as inhumane.

Adams notably has not urged Biden to renew Title 42 — which Republicans are pushing for — and has instead opted to press the president for funding.

At Monday’s hearing, City Council Republicans cited Adams’ alarming warnings about city service cuts and called for a reinstatement of Title 42.

“[Without Title 42], the city is going to go belly up,” said GOP Queens Councilwoman Joann Ariola.

With Josephine Stratman and Cayla Bamberger