So what’s the plan? An assessment team led by the Department of Homeland Security inspected New York City’s Roosevelt Hotel migrant processing center Wednesday as new arrivals were forced to sleep on the sidewalk outside the overflowing landmark just last week.
The visit, which the city’s public hospitals agency confirmed, came two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security’s top honcho made a vague promise to send a migrant liaison to theboroughs.
The team visited in the morning, officials said, adding that federal officials and members of the congressional delegation often stop by the beleaguered site, which is stuffed to capacity with families and asylum seekers who had just arrived from the southern border.
Mayor Eric Adams acknowledged the visit during a press conference in which he warned the cost of housing tens of thousands of migrants in the city would balloon to $12 billion over the next two years.
Migrants stand in line at the Roosevelt Hotel. Seth Gottfried
Volunteer groups welcome migrants to Sunset Park Recreation Center with food and other support on August 6, 2023. Kevin C. Downs for NY Post“We appreciate them sending a team from the US Department of Homeland Security to New York City to assess the situation this week,” he said.
“There’s more they can do, including expediting pathways to work authorizations for asylum seekers,” Hizzoner added.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul told NY1 that an a federal team would try to find ways to integrate city, state and federal efforts as 56,000 asylum seekers bussed from the southern border were being sheltered on the taxpayer’s dime.
DHS experts would then deliver recommendations for bureaucratic relief to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — who had pledged to visit New York to see the city’s overwhelmed shelter system for himself.
Migrants sleeping in front of the Roosevelt Hotel. Seth GottfriedNYC officials say they expected five new busloads of asylum seekers to arrive in Manhattan Wednesday.
Adams, meanwhile, had been escalating his impassioned demands for help from the Biden administration, both in manpower and money.
The Democrat has asked Washington, DC, for more than $4 billion to cover the bill for housing nearly 100,000 migrants last spring, but the city had received less than 5% of that figure.
Emergency officials have opened over 190 emergency shelters to accommodate the continuous flow of asylum seekers.
About 20 migrants left on a city bus from the Roosevelt Hotel, which was being used as temporary housing. Robert MillerThey are in the process of building new relief housing on Randall’s Island, as its Midtown Manhattan processing center at the landmark Roosevelt Hotel burst at the seams.
Hochul also said she was continuing her months-long push on the feds to let the city house thousands of migrants at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field, which the National Park Service runs.





