Migrants on streets as New York City fails to provide shelter

New York's mayor claimed that the city is full as migrants were sleeping on the street while waiting for their asylum applications to be processed, amid sweltering summer temperatures

Migrants sleep outside the Roosevelt Hotel as they wait for placement at the hotel in New York on Aug.1, 2023. Many newly arrived migrants have been waiting outside the Roosevelt Hotel, which has been turned into a migrant reception center, to try to secure temporary housing.

Dozens of asylum seekers, mainly from West Africa, have been sleeping on sidewalks outside a Manhattan hotel this week, waiting to be processed at a makeshift center following perilous journeys fleeing violence and poverty.

They are seeking shelter in the Big Apple two weeks after Mayor Eric Adams said the city had no more space, following an influx of migrants that has stretched services to their breaking point.

"There is no more room," Adams reiterated on Monday. And it's "not going to get better," he added.

His comments in late July encouraging migrants to go to other cities sparked accusations that he was violating the city's right-to-shelter laws and betraying the spirit of New York, as symbolized by the Statue of Liberty, which in years gone by welcomed new arrivals by sea.

A general view shows the exterior of the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan, New York City, on July 31, 2023.

Abdoullahi Diallo was among those who waited outside the Roosevelt Hotel on Tuesday after traveling for two weeks from his native Mauritania, first to Türkiye, then Nicaragua, before crossing the Mexican border into the United States.

The journey cost him $8,000 and he undertook it in search of "democracy" and "respect," the 25-year-old told AFP.

Others seeking temporary accommodation were from Senegal. Some said they had slept on cardboard in storefronts for five days waiting to be accommodated.

A police officer hands out pizza to dozens of recently arrived migrants to New York City as they camp outside of the Roosevelt Hotelç

Since April last year, more than 93,000 migrants, mostly from Central and South America, have arrived in New York, which is required by law to offer free housing to anyone who requests it.

The influx has come as Republican-led states such as Texas have transported migrants to Democratic-run areas to protest President Joe Biden's immigration policies.

Almost 106,000 people, including some 54,000 migrants, currently live in New York City's care, either in shelters or hotels, according to officials.

Last month, Adams announced that authorities would hand out flyers at the U.S.-Mexican border saying there was "no guarantee" they would receive shelter in New York and that they should "please consider" another city.

New York City has long been a sanctuary city for migrants but Adams, a Democrat, has been gradually trying to restrict the number of new arrivals.

His administration now gives priority to families with young children when granting free housing, while single men will have to reapply for shelter after 60 days.

"Our compassion is infinite. Our space is not," a senior official at the agency that operates much of the emergency housing for migrants said recently.

Adams has blamed the federal and state governments for not providing enough assistance.

But city comptroller Brad Lander has accused him of undermining "the defining role of New York as a beacon of promise, inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty."

New York state is bound by a decades-old consent decree from a class-action lawsuit to provide shelter for those without homes. As more migrants have arrived, a range of approaches to housing them, from tents to relocation to other parts of the state, has been tried.