New York City will hand out flyers at shelters and the southern border, warning migrants that they won’t get free housing in the Big Apple — and telling them to go somewhere cheaper as the sanctuary city is in just 18 year has been overwhelmed by 116,000 newcomers. months.
The administration of Democratic Mayor Eric Adams announced Wednesday that it would distribute the literature as part of its efforts to prevent more asylum seekers from coming to the city, which currently houses and feeds more than 60,000 asylum seekers.
Vice Mayor for Health and Human Services Ana Williams Isom showed off the updated flyers at a city council meeting and said they would be used to combat “misinformation” coming from social media or human traffickers about migrant services in the city.
“We will be distributing these flyers at our shelters and shelters in New York City, as well as through NGOs and nonprofits across the country,” she told the meeting. “We know that there are people in our shelters who are telling their family members that they need to come to New York City and that they will be provided with housing… that has never been the case, but we want to make sure that we are clear with people that New York City has run out of room.”
One of the messages on the flyers reads: ‘NYC is one of the most expensive cities in the world; you’re better off going to a cheaper city.’
Vice Mayor for Health and Human Services Ana Williams Isom showed off the updated flyers during a city council meeting Wednesday
The city had already distributed similar flyers in July to discourage asylum seekers at the border, but the updated message is much blunter
The city had already distributed similar flyers in July to discourage asylum seekers at the border, but the updated message is much blunter, with warnings such as “New York City resources have been exhausted,” “You will not be placed in a hotel,” and “NYC cannot help you obtain a work permit, and you will not be able to find work easily.”
It’s not the right message — while Adams has tried to get the Right to Shelter police suspended as he deals with the influx of migrants, the law is still in effect, meaning the city must provide shelter to anyone who asks for it.
As the city ran out of space, landmarks such as the Roosevelt Hotel were transformed into emergency shelters. NYC currently pays hotels an average of $185 per day per room, and spends approximately $385 per night per migrant family in need of housing and food. According to Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, asylum seekers cost the city about $10 million every day.
Adams has said the crisis will cost the city $12 billion over three years.
Both city and state governments first welcomed asylum seekers sent to northern sanctuary cities by Republican governors fed up with what they saw as Democrats’ open-arm immigration policies.
Mayor Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul first said they were proud to lead the city’s Right to Shelter, citing the Statue of Liberty’s message about taking in the “poor, tired and hungry.”
But more than 100,000 arrivals later, both Adams and Hochul have repeatedly told asylum seekers there is no room for them in New York.
Since July, Adams has been telling migrants that the city is almost at capacity, warning that if the situation continues to escalate without federal help, the crisis would “destroy” the city.
As the city ran out of space, landmarks such as the Roosevelt Hotel were transformed into emergency shelters
New York City’s migrant crisis is expected to cost the city $4.7 billion this year. Above is a list of some of the landmarks that have been converted into emergency shelters as officials struggle to house nearly 60,000 migrants in the city’s care
Last week, Hochul repeated the claim that asylum seekers would not be offered housing: “We have to make it known that if you come to New York, you will not have more hotel rooms, we have no capacity,” Shel said on CNN.
‘So we must also make it clear that we have reached the limit: if you are going to leave your country, go somewhere else.’
However, the city has secretly renewed its contracts using its more than 100 hotels as emergency shelters, and plans to spend as much as $1 billion more on hotel rooms for immigrants for three more years.
The city’s contract, which was set to expire this year, now expires in August 2026 and will cost a total of $1.365 billion — nearly five times the original price tag of $237 million.
The new charges do not include other facilities that have been converted into shelters, such as the tent shelters set up at the McCarren Recreation Center in Queens or the Island Shores Assisted Living on Staten Island.
Mayor Eric Adams said on September 9 that spending would be cut by 15 percent through next spring to cope with an influx of 116,000 migrants in 2023, with 60,000 of the city’s desperate people housed.
Adams — who is up for re-election in 2025 — told city agencies they would each have to cut spending by 5 percent by November. There will then be another 5 percent cut in January and a final hack in April.
Meanwhile, record numbers of migrants continue to cross the US-Mexico border every day, and many have indeed heard that NYC will take care of them.
The Roosevelt Hotel (pictured), Paul Hotel and Paramount Hotel are among the hotels designated for migrant housing in Manhattan
Venezuelan migrant Melvin Pinto, 30, who is housed at the Roosevelt Hotel with his family, told DailyMail.com that he decided to board a bus from Texas to New York City because of the support the city offers migrants.
“Honestly, it’s because of the support they give us…we don’t have any family here,” Pinto said. “We don’t lie about the need for asylum, we run from all the craziness in Venezuela, and it’s not just hunger, it’s armed groups and corrupt police… if there’s no way (at home), we just leave.”
The Big Apple has taken in more than double the number of migrants than the next most popular cities. Adams has called for state and federal help as the migrant crisis will cost the city an estimated $12 billion over the next three years.
Houston was listed as the destination for 15,416 people, while 15,329 people documented heading to Los Angeles County and 11,081 to Miami-Dade County since May.
Despite Mayor Adams’ cries for help from the state and federal governments, the city has not received any assistance to cover the additional costs, so the $4.7 billion would come from the city’s budget. That amount is equal to the budgets for municipal sanitary facilities, fire brigade and parks combined.
Adams has warned that the city’s services will be affected by the incredible extra spending in the budget. He has previously stated that the city plans to cut services such as library hours, meals for seniors and free day care for three-year-olds.