News 12 Staff

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May 7, 2023, 11:40 AM

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Updated

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It’s still not immediately clear when asylum seekers will be bused to Orange and Rockland counties from New York City – a decision that prompted Rockland County Executive Ed Day on Saturday to declare a state of emergency.

News 12’s Emily Young was outside the Armoni Inn & Suites in Orangeburg where migrants were expected to stay.

Day said the state of emergency declaration means that the contract that New York City has with the Armoni Inn is null and void.

“In order to do that now under the state of emergency that I’ve declared, you need a permit from the county executive’s office, and I can tell you that permit has not been issued, nor will be issued,” said Day.

He said that if the hotel does end up letting the asylum seekers stay there, they are looking at serious penalties.

“Any migrant that comes through that door, and they try to put them up – it’s a $2,000 fine,” he said.

Rockland officials say they are not getting the information they need from New York City officials, which seems to be complicating the matter.

Mayor Eric Adams’ spokesman Fabien Levy sent News 12 a statement:

"More than 60,000 have arrived in NYC over the last year, so we're talking about 1/4 of 1% of the people who have come to NYC going to Rockland County, and, remember that we are paying for their shelter and wraparound services for up to four months."

Westchester County Executive George Latimer also released a statement when asked if New York City has reached out to the county for assistance.

Latimer said in part, "We're checking to see the status of this issue in Westchester. The last time this happened was in 2018, when the Trump administration placed 1,000 immigrant children in four Westchester locations for multiple months. At that time, we were told by [the Department of Health and Human Services] we had no say in the matter."

RELATED: Orange County hotel says its preparing to receive migrants from New York City