The city will close its Asylum Application Help Center, which helped thousands of asylum seekers to file paperwork for asylum and temporary work permits in midtown Manhattan.
City officials blamed “gaps in state funding” for migrant-related costs for the closure, according to the New York Times.
“We are disappointed to have to make the difficult decision” to close the center, Liz Garcia, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said in a statement to the paper.
The Asylum Application Help Center was launched in 2023, at the former American Red Cross offices, to assist immigrants who had recently arrived in New York City submit their asylum and work authorization applications.
There are still more than 100 migrants are arriving in the city each week, down from a high of 4,000 last year. Still, about 38,000 migrants, mostly families with children, remain in shelters, down from a peak of 69,000 in January 2024, the Times said.
The imminent shutdown marks the latest diminishing role the city is taking with the influx of migrants, which has abated because of stricter immigration policies that have sharply halted border crossings, leading City Hall to close dozens of shelters during the past year.
In addition, the federal government has already clawed back $80 million in federal funds from New York City meant for migrant shelters, leading to a lawsuit, and has moved to withhold even more.
The nonpfrfit New York Immigration Coalition blamed financial mismanagement from the city as a reason for the closure.
"While New York State put $4.3 billion towards assisting recent arrivals in the state budget over the last two years, the Adams administration only tapped $1.6 billion of that funding – failing to access all the resources that were made available," said Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition. "It is convenient for Adams to blame everyone else for the city’s budget issues, but his own fiscal mismanagement is the real problem. New York City needs its mayor to stand up for all New Yorkers, and enact the policies that will allow all people to not just survive, but thrive.”
