According to The New York Post, N.Y. City Mayor Eric Adams is asking to suspend N.Y. City's "right to shelter" regulation as it struggles to provide housing, food, and various legal services to a mere 40,000 aliens shipped from the border with limited federal assistance.
While 40,000 is undoubtedly a large number, it absolutely pales in comparison to the approximate 6,500,000 illegal aliens released into U.S. communities by the Biden Administration. In terms of how large that total released number is, N.Y. City's current population is 8,400,000.
The New York Post reports,
The New York City Law Department submitted an application on Tuesday night requesting that the Big Apple's decades-old "right to shelter" regulation is modified, explaining that the surge of migrants has placed "unprecedented demands" on the city's resources.
The city wants the rule waived when "the City of New York acting through the New York City Department of Homeless Services [ironically abbreviated "DHS"] lacks the resources and capacity to establish and maintain sufficient shelter sites, staffing, and security to provide safe and appropriate shelter," wrote the Law Department's Jonathan Pines in the application to Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Deborah Kaplan for the New York City Courts.
N.Y. City Mayor Adams, who promised to keep the Big Apple's sanctuary policies during his election, stated:
Given that we're unable to provide care for an unlimited number of people and are already overextended, it is in the best interest of everyone, including those seeking to come to the United States, to be upfront that New York City cannot single-handedly provide care to everyone crossing our border.
Being dishonest about this will only result in our system collapsing, and we need our government partners to know the truth and do their share.
New York City Law Department's Jonathan Pines adds:
This ongoing flood of asylum-seekers arriving in New York City from the southern border represents a crisis of national, indeed international dimension; yet, the challenges and fiscal burden of this national crisis have fallen almost exclusively upon the City.
These unprecedented demands on the City's shelter resources confront the City Defendant with challenges never contemplated, foreseeable, or indeed even remotely imagined by any signatory to the Callahan Judgment [the 1981 decision that established the "right to shelter"].
Over the past calendar year, the metropolis has received over 73,000 illegal aliens and is currently housing over 44,000 aliens in upwards of 150 "emergency" shelters, hotels, and even local school gymnasiums.
"The city's total shelter currently stands at 93,000 individuals, over 81,000 of whom are being housed in shelters run by the city's Department of Social Services, according to the filing. N.Y. City's Office of Management and Budget Director Jacques Jiha said earlier during a City Council hearing Tuesday that soon the city "will be caring for more asylum seekers on a nightly basis than we had people in our entire DHS shelter system last year," reports the NYPost.
"The unfortunate reality is that the City has extended itself further than its resources will allow, placing in jeopardy the City's obligations to manage its finances in order to maintain critical infrastructure and services and provide for the well-being of all of its citizens," wrote Jonathan Pines.
Queens Councilman Robert Holden, a Democrat, cheered Mayor Adams's request.
"It's about time, he should have done it a long time ago," he told The Post.
"There's tremendous pressure on his administration, there's no more room at the inn."
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