(The Center Square) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams is moving to shut down migrant shelter sites across the city as the flow of new arrivals begins to slow down amid a federal immigration crackdown.
Adams announced this week that the city will close the Asylum Seeker Arrival Center at New York’s iconic Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan, which was a target of criticism from Elon Musk and the Trump administration, who criticized the city for housing migrants in “luxury” hotels at the taxpayers’ expense.
The move to close the Roosevelt Hotel site will be the first of many closures, Adams said, with the city planning to wind down another 53 other emergency shelter sites by this summer. The mayor said less than 45,000 migrants are currently being cared for by the city, down from a high of nearly 70,000 last month.
“The fact that, within a span of year, we are closing 53 sites and shuttering all of our tent-based facilities shows both our continued progress and our ability, when faced with unprecedented challenges, to do what no other city can,” Adams said in a statement.
The announcement came just days after New York City filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to reclaim $80 million that the Federal Emergency Management Agency previously authorized to cover hotel costs for migrants.
The funding included a $59 million grant and $21.5 million for the city’s costs to maintain its asylum seeker system, which was awarded during former President Joe Biden’s administration. However, the city claims the Trump administration “illegally” pulled back the money.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Trump administration “clawed back” the payments that “FEMA deep state activists unilaterally gave to NYC migrant hotels.” She claimed the Roosevelt Hotel served as a “base of operations” for the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and provided shelter to “Laken Riley’s killer,” an undocumented Venezuelan national.
But Adams has also been accused of agreeing to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in exchange for dropping federal bribery and corruption charges against him. Adam’s trial on the charges has been put on hold while a federal judge reviews whether to accept the U.S. Department of Justice’s request to drop the charges against him.
New York City has spent an estimated $7 billion on housing and other costs for more than 230,000 migrants who have arrived since early 2022, but the Adams administration said the average number of new arrivals in the city has dropped to about 350 migrants a week.
“Now, thanks to the sound policy decisions of our team, we are able to announce the closure of this site and help even more asylum seekers take the next steps in their journeys as they envision an even brighter future, while simultaneously saving taxpayers millions of dollars,” Adams said in a statement.
This article was originally published at www.thecentersquare.com
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