As city and state officials scramble to find solutions to provide for asylum seekers, the COVID-era restriction Title 42 expires at midnight.
U.S. Homeland Security officials anticipate as many as 10,000 migrants could be crossing the border each day. Volunteers who helped receive migrants at the Port Authority bus terminal in Brooklyn since August say they saw at least 300 migrants a day. With Title 42 ending, they expect to see hundreds more.
In anticipation of this heavy influx of migrants, Mayor Eric Adams signed an executive order to suspend certain parts of the “Right to Shelter” law, which has been in place since 1981. Under the new order, New York will no longer have to provide migrants with their own room and can direct them to a communal shelter instead.
About 61,000 migrants have arrived in New York over the past year and over 37,000 asylum seekers are currently in the city’s care.
In anticipation of those numbers increasing, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed Executive Order 28, which allocates $1 billion to next year's budget in order to provide migrants with food, shelter, health care and legal assistance.
Title 42 will be replaced with Title 8, which will allow migrants to apply for legal pathways to enter the United States. Despite the additional funding, some still believe the city could be doing more.
Another change put in place by the state will increase the number of National Guard presence in areas like Port Authority Terminal from 1,000 members to 1,500 members.
Volunteers helping asylum seekers also say migrants are not only coming from buses, but they are also arriving on planes at John F. Kennedy International Airport and La Guardia.