NEW YORK — Immigrant families and their advocates marched outside New York City Hall on Tuesday to demand Mayor Eric Adams end his plan to limit the number of days newly arrived immigrants can stay in city-run shelters.
The late afternoon demonstration by students and parents in City Hall Park was in response to an order Adams issued in October limiting homeless migrants and their children to 60 days in city housing. The Democrat said the move was necessary to relieve a shelter system overwhelmed by asylum seekers crossing the U.S. southern border.
Liza Schwartzwald, director of the New York Immigration Coalition, one of the groups that organized Tuesday's meeting, said the time limits only serve to uproot families who have already made the dangerous journey across the border after experiencing poverty and crime in their had fled their home country.
“There is no excuse to re-traumatize these families,” she said.
Karen Alford, vice president at the United Federation of Teachers, said the policy will force migrant students newly settled in the classroom to move from school to school as their families find new places to live in the city.
“As a city, we need to do better,” she said.
Spokespeople for Adams did not respond to an email seeking comment. But the mayor suggested earlier Tuesday that frustrated New Yorkers should protest on the streets of the capital instead.
“We need to mobilize and unite and go to D.C. and tell the national government this isn't fair what's happening to New York City,” said Adams, one of several major city mayors who called for more federal aid in controlling the wave. of migrants who say they are arriving in their cities with little to no coordination, support or resources from President Joe Biden's administration.
The 60-day limit is one of the Adams administration's efforts to enforce New York's decades-old “right to shelter,” which requires the city to provide emergency housing to anyone who requests it.
The first families affected by the order were expected to reach their time limit just days after Christmas. But the mayor's office told The Associated Press last week that these migrants will receive extensions through early January.
So far, about 3,500 families have received a warning. There is already a maximum of 30 days in reception centers for single migrants.
Those who still need assistance after their moving deadline will need to reapply. But city officials have warned that a new placement may not happen immediately. Families could also be sent to the sprawling tent complexes the city has built far from Manhattan.