New York City filed a lawsuit Wednesday against over 30 upstate localities that issued emergency orders aimed at barring the Big Apple from housing migrants in hotels.
The city’s suit names Rockland and Orange counties, in addition to 31 other counties and one town, that recently issued migrant-related emergency orders after New York Mayor Eric Adams announced his administration will begin busing migrants to private hotels in their areas.
Adams’ corporation counsel Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix described the emergency orders as “misguided and unlawful” filings “premised on false claims” that asylum seekers’ presence constituted a serious threat to public safety, at a City Hall-based press conference Wednesday afternoon.
“Respondents’ EOs burden and obstruct New York City’s lawful and reasonable efforts to address the ongoing statewide humanitarian crisis in a manner that is explicitly permitted by law and required by this statewide emergency,” reads the 37-page lawsuit filed in Manhattan state Supreme Court by the city and NYC Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Waslow Park.
The suit also requests that the court deem the EOs “null and void” and invalidate them “in excess of authority, affected by an error of law, arbitrary and capricious, and an abuse of discretion.”
On Monday, a Southern District judge issued a preliminary injunction preventing Orange and Rockland counties from enforcing their emergency executive orders on the grounds that the orders violate the new arrivals’ Fourth Amendment rights.
Noticeably absent from the city’s suit, however, were Albany and Monroe counties, which also filed emergency migrant orders.
Around 72,000 migrants have passed through New York City since last spring, Deputy Mayor Anne Williams Isom said at Wednesday’s press briefing.
About 47,500 of the asylum seekers are in shelters, and 162 emergency sites are operating, she added.
Williams Isom also touched on Tuesday’s announcement that the city will receive $104.6 million from FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program for the migrant crisis.
“We have already spent over $1.2 million [on the migrant crisis] and expect to spend over $4.3 billion through next June,” she explained.
“But it’s clear that without the efforts of congressional leadership … New York City would not be able to receive this additional federal funding.”
Pastor Gilford Monrose spoke about new plans to shelter some migrants overnight at houses of worship throughout the city.
About 1,000 newcomers will be housed there overnight, while additional centers will be open during the day, Monrose said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters last Friday that she hoped New York state would be more “generous and … welcoming” as the city continues to struggle to house the influx of migrants.
“And we have some counties that are in that vein, and I’m really proud of them, and others that are not so much,” she said pointedly.
