Officials in Rockland County have declared a state of emergency in an effort to stop New York City’s plan to dump hundreds of migrants there.
The declaration by Rockland County Executive Ed Day, prohibits other municipalities from bringing and housing people in the county, according to the Rockland Report.
It also bars hotels and motels from housing migrants without a license and requires municipalities that wish to house migrants or asylum seekers in Rockland County to ensure they will cover their expenses.
The town board in Orangetown, NY, about 40 minutes north of Manhattan, was slated to hold a special meeting Saturday to explore ways to shut down Mayor Adams’ plan to bus the migrants from city shelters to their doorstep, town supervisor Teresa Kenny told The Post.
“We have a lot of questions—is this temporary thing? Is it going to become a permanent thing for New York City? What is the program?” she said.
The Adams administration gave Kenny a head’s up Saturday that the first wave of migrants would number “less than 100,” and could arrive “as soon as this weekend,” she said.
The decision to house migrants upstate came after the city’s shelter system reached a limit in the number of new facilities that could be opened.
The migrants are expected to be housed at the 170-room Armoni Inn and Suites, where stacks of mattresses were spotted outside Friday, according to local reports.
Orangetown officials will explore whether they can stop the buses from coming, and how long migrants would be allowed to stay in the hotel.
“If it was handled differently, people wouldn’t be getting so upset,” Kenny said.
The migrants had yet to arrive by Saturday afternoon, when dozens of people in dresses and suits were seen trickling in for a small wedding reception being held in the ballroom, as photographers and musicians were seen unloading their equipment in the parking lot.
Rockland officials have griped that the city gave only a last-minute head’s up that 340 single adult men would be housed in a hotel in their county.
City Hall disputed that figure, saying at most 300 migrants total would have the choice to be housed in Rockland or neighboring Orange County.
“Mayor Eric Adams is criticizing Congress for their failure to establish a strategy for each migrant before they enter into the country, ensuring this crisis is dealt with in a coordinated manner, and then does the exact opposite – shipping new arrivals to other municipalities that do not have the infrastructure to support them,” Day told the Rockland Report.
“It’s the same as tossing people into the middle of the ocean with nowhere to swim,” he added.
Nearly 61,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since last spring, and more than 37,000 are living in city-operated or city-funded shelter facilities, according to City Hall. The city so far has opened up 122 emergency shelters and 8 large-scale humanitarian relief centers to handle the continued influx of migrants.
