New York City has long been a city of immigrants living up to the
words on the Statue of Liberty in the city's harbor. Give me your
tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free alone
among major U. S. Cities. New York has a legal obligation to offer
shelter to everyone who wants it. But the current influx of migrants
and asylum seekers is putting that to the test. They came from around
the world, making often dangerous journeys to a city they hoped would
offer them better lives. What they found is a city whose migrant
crisis is at a breaking point and intake center at the historic Roosevelt
Hotel in midtown Manhattan, has been filled to overflowing. Many
have been sleeping shoulder to shoulder on concrete sidewalks. Mayor
Eric Adams has called for federal assistance We need help we need.
We need help, and it's it's not going to get any better. We put Busses
there, too, for cooling systems, but it's just not sustainable. City
officials say the shelter system has been overwhelmed by the nearly
100,000 migrants and asylum seekers who have arrived in New York
since spring. 2022. Further complicating things. Republican governors
like Greg Abbott of Texas have been setting thousands of migrants
to New York City and other so called sanctuary cities. In addition
to financial help, Adams is asking the federal government to expedite
work permits. But some advocates say a longer term solution is needed.
We need to actually stop doubling and tripling down on broken systems
like our emergency shelter system and actually invest And getting
people out of emergency shelter and into permanent housing.
Guarantee of housing is the result of a lawsuit from the legal aid
society More than 40 years ago this week, Legal aid threatened to
take the city back to court. Jasmine Garza as a New York based correspondent
for NPR. Her work is focused on immigrant communities. Jasmine, We've
seen pictures we were able to show pictures of what what a television
camera can see. But it can't see everything. You've been there. You've
been to these centers. You've been to the sidewalks around these
centers. What have you seen? And what if what if people told you
down there? What we've seen is that the shelter system is overwhelmed
and said they're at capacity when I was at the Roosevelt Hotel with
served at Intake center. Um, there were people who were sleeping
outside had been sleeping outside for 456 days during a heat wave.
Um, and they were just waiting for intake. Is this just an issue
of volume? Or is there another problem going on here? City is undergoing
a housing crisis that one problem compounding with another. I have
been Quite a bit of time with homeless encampments of migrants and
asylum seekers, many of whom told me they do not want to be inside
of those shelters. A dad to the overcrowding the food that sometimes
is in in bad condition and get the people thick. Um, I've heard widespread
accounts of 80 or 90 people having to share one or two bathrooms.
It is really, really a bad situation for migrants and asylum seekers.
Here in the city. You spoken to asylum seekers and migrants there.
How many of them said that they intended to go to New York from the
beginning, and how many just ended up there, by other means? Absolutely
nobody that I have spoken to show the New York City everyone I've
spoken to told me. I just got bust here. You know, one of the new
policies that Mayor Eric Adams has announced
to hand out flyers at the border, urging people to find somewhere
else to go. That isn't New York it's It's unusual, however, every
single person that I have spoken to had no idea that New York was
at capacity that the situation in the shelters was as it is. Um,
and that that that they would be having to wait on the street for
days On end, you said a lot of these people are most of all the people
you talk to just got bussed to New York and now New York is bussing
them upstate, where they ending up In what conditions? Are they seeing
what they when they get their
people have been both to areas of state. Certain places like Yonkers
and Albany have said. This is a lot for us to handle, but we will
do it. And there's other areas update. Um, that have really bulked.
I mean, there's even been lawsuits. There has been a restraining
order. There's parts of updates New York that have told the city
you are Sanctuary City. We are not. We do not want people here and
that has caused A lot of concern among activists and advocate. I
know you went down to the border on a reporting trip. Is there any
connection between what you saw at the border and what you're seeing
in New York City? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the binding administration
has had a policy of deterrent, saying, you know, do not just cross
the border and expect to get asylum. If we count you crossing the
border without papers, you will be deported in an expedited way,
and there will be a harsher punishment, And it's also encourage people
to use the CDP one app in other words, to apply for asylum. Online.
I met so many migrants that their daily routine is basically wake
up at six AM and try to get on that bbp one app so that they can
do the asylum process. I did also meet people that were Completely
death for it. And they didn't want to wait in Mexico because their
lives were in danger because they had suffered exploitation or abuse
or harassment or worth in Mexico. And they were just going to go
for it and cross because they felt that their lives were in danger.
Jasmine Garza of NPR Thank you very much. Thank you.