3 new buses of migrants arrive as NYC plans to use Brooklyn school gym for housing
CONEY ISLAND, Brooklyn (WABC) -- Three more buses carrying asylum seekers arrived at Port Authority on Saturday morning as backlash continues against New York City's plans on where to house the migrants.
Earlier this week there were growing protests at Mayor Eric Adams' plan to send migrants north to hotels in the Hudson Valley, and now a new plan announced Friday is drawing criticism as well.
The Coney Island community in Brooklyn is the latest to express a sense of outrage over the plan to house migrants at a school gym.
One of the biggest complaints is that the city has waited until the last minute to inform elected officials of the relocation plans for asylum seekers.
The pace of migrants arriving in New York City is expected to stay the same or pick up after the expiration of the federal policy Title 42.
New York City officials continue to look for places to house the influx of asylum seekers, and now one new place under consideration is PS 188 at the far end of Coney Island.
Its standalone gym, not currently being used by the school, is among the sites the city intends to house adult migrants.
Councilmember Ari Kagan says there has been an utter lack of communication from City Hall.
"This is not the way to get any notifications and though they're saying it's a very fluid situation because nobody knows what can happen tonight or tomorrow or Sunday, it's still not a proper notification," Kagan said. "Which leads me to think someone didn't want me to know."
The councilmember says he has been so confused about the plan that in a now-deleted tweet he posted, "For now, the plan to place migrants in this school gym is scrapped." However, according to the mayor's office, that is not true.
A spokesperson from the mayor's office says while there are no migrants at the moment, the gym is set up. However, Kagan says he has been inside and that's not true.
Adams' spokesperson said, "We received more than 4,200 asylum seekers this past week alone...we are out of space. We will continue to communicate with local elected officials."
There is also a debate over the mayor's executive order, which temporarily loosened requirements for homeless families seeking shelter. The council member says there are no showers inside. He says the conditions are inhumane.
Meanwhile Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus on Friday filed two lawsuits on behalf of the county to stop the NYC from sending migrants and/or asylum seekers to the county.
The first lawsuit is against both the Crossroads Hotel and Ramada by Wyndham, both located in the Town of Newburgh, to stop the hotels from accepting migrants and/or asylum seekers in violation of the Order and Declaration of Emergency issued by Neuhaus earlier this week.
The second lawsuit against New York City and Adams is to stop the city from establishing unlicensed and unregulated homeless shelters in Orange County for the migrants and/or asylum seekers.
"New York City is a self-proclaimed sanctuary city and needs to fix this problem Orange County now faces," Neuhaus said. "This issue was created by Mayor Adams and the Federal government's failed immigration policies."
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