New York City hit by new immigrant flow

Shortly after 6 am on Monday, buses carrying 200 immigrants rolled into Midtown Manhattan from Texas. Most of them, including young children, wore lightweight sweaters or blankets to ward off the cold.

Mayor Eric Adams' administration warned that 10 to 15 busloads of migrants were expected to arrive this week due to the lifting of Title 42, a Trump-era public health rule enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday temporarily blocked the Biden administration from ending the pandemic-era Title 42 immigration policy, leaving in doubt whether officials will continue to expel migrants over concerns about public health risks. Title 42 is set to expire Wednesday.

"We have been told in no uncertain terms that, beginning today, we should expect an influx of busses coming from the border and that more than 1,000 additional asylum seekers will arrive in New York City every week," Adams said in a statement released on Sunday. "We need help from Washington."

Seeking to draw the Biden administration's attention to the growing immigrant crisis, Republican governors of border states such as Texas and Arizona have been shipping migrants to Democratic-controlled cities such as New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.

New York has received more than 31,000 migrants and has opened 60 emergency shelters, mostly in hotels, as well as six other centers. New York City's school chancellor said in October that the school system has enrolled more than 5,500 new migrant students, most of whom came from Latin America.

Authorities in Texas said Friday they had transported more than 8,600 migrants to Washington, more than 4,000 to New York and fewer to Chicago and Philadelphia.

There has been an unprecedented influx of migrants across the US-Mexico border this year. Border authorities encountered two million people trying to cross the border without prior authorization during the last financial year, the highest number on record.

Few have managed to cross over. Most were turned back under Title 42. It has been used since March 2020 to remove illegal immigrants from the US.

The US Department of Homeland Security declared last week that the US wasn't ready "to handle the current volume of migration or the increased volume we expect over the coming weeks and months".

Adams, who declared a state of emergency over the migrant influx in October, said in a statement on Sunday that if nothing changes and the policy expires, the cost of absorbing new migrants was unsustainable and could lead to cuts to existing city programs.

"Our shelter system is full, and we are nearly out of money, staff, and space. Truth be told, if corrective measures are not taken soon, we may very well be forced to cut or curtail programs New Yorkers rely on," he said.

Adams accused the federal government of ignoring the city's pleas for aid and accused Republicans and Democrats in Congress of failing to "raise their hand" to help.

"We need New Yorkers to understand that, so far, they have been asked to shoulder this burden almost entirely alone," he said.

According to city data released last week, the federal government has placed more than 21,000 migrants into NYC's struggling shelter system, instead of moving them to other cities.