What You Need To Know:
New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, has announced plans to house up to 2,000 migrants on an island nestled within the East River.
The island, known as Randalls Island, was previously the site of a migrant center that was set up last year.
But it was swiftly dismantled only weeks after being put up.
The Details:
Mayor Adams elaborated that the state would compensate the city for the financial costs of the tented city, which will be constructed to house adult migrants.
In an official statement, Adams said, “As the number of asylum seekers in our care continues to grow by hundreds every day, stretching our system to its breaking point and beyond, it has become more and more of a Herculean effort to find enough beds every night.”
In the past, the city has used hotels as provisional migrant lodgings and even repurposed facilities like a cruise ship terminal and an unused police academy.
This makeshift arrangement has been New York’s response to the steady stream of tens of thousands of asylum seekers that have flocked to the city over the past year.
Adams pointed out that the number of asylum seekers under the city’s care is more than 57,200.
The city’s leadership had previously announced plans to house 1,000 migrants within the perimeter of a state psychiatric hospital’s parking lot in Queens.
Recent developments have also seen the designation of recreation centers in two Brooklyn parks—McCarren and Sunset—as shelters for migrants.
Randalls Island has already been used by New York City in October of last year as a migrant center. But the center was dismantled three weeks later.