New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday marked the closure of the city’s Asylum Seeker Arrival Center and Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center located at The Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, marking one end to the extraordinary flow of asylum seekers into the city over the past several years.
Since the spring of 2022, more than 237,000 asylum seekers have come through New York City’s care, the mayor said. The hotel's intake center provided over 200,000 vaccinations, enrolled 50,000 children in city public schools, and completed over 111,000 work authorization, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and asylum applications.
“New York City has always been, and will always be, a city of immigrants, so it’s easy to forget, that just three years ago, New York City became the forefront of an international humanitarian crisis that eventually peaked at more 4,000 individuals arriving in our city weekly asking for shelter and support," the mayor said. "At a moment when others stepped back, New York City stepped up."
Opened in May 2023 — during the height of the international asylum seeker crisis, with the city receiving an average of 4,000 arrivals each week — the facility assisted asylum seekers across more than 300,000 visits, functioning as a centralized intake center for newly arriving asylum seekers and serving individuals representing over 160 countries and speaking over 60 languages.
The site provided a variety of supportive services to migrants, including legal assistance, medical care, and reconnection services, as well as serving as a humanitarian relief center for families with children.
Going forward, these intake functions and supportive services will now be integrated into other areas of the general homelessness intake system, the mayor said.
There are currently fewer than 37,000 migrants left in the city’s care, down from a high on a single day of 69,000 in January of 2024, and out of the more than 237,000 that have arrived in New York City seeking city services since the spring of 2022.
“Millions of future Americans will one day trace their family’s immigration story back to places like the Arrival Center at The Roosevelt Hotel and at Port Authority, sites where New York City met them with humanity, dignity, and hope” said Manuel Castro, the commissioner of Immigrant Affairs. "I’m deeply grateful to all the public servants who stood with us in this extraordinary chapter of our city’s story.”
