New York struggles to accommodate tens of thousands of migrants bused from other states
BY SANYA MANSOOR The Brief includes reporting by Olivia B. Waxman and Julia Zorthian
ALI SAYYID, FATHER OF SIX, TRIES TO QUICKLY change direction when his children hear the sound of an ice cream truck coming down a New York City street. He can’t afford it. “In Afghanistan, life was good and they were eating everything,” says Sayyid, who was a civil engineer before the Taliban’s 2021 takeover. He fled with his family first to Brazil and then across the southern border into the U.S., an epochal journey that landed him not only in a new land, but also in its politics.
Sayyid is among more than 100,000 migrants who have arrived in New York City over the past year. It’s an influx that threatens to overwhelm the carrying capacity of a city that has made opening its arms to newcomers so fundamental to its identity (see: the Statue of Liberty) that Southern and Southwestern governors set out to test it—busing tens of thousands of newly arrived migrants from Texas, Florida, and Arizona to 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue, the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
“Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to—I don’t see an ending to this,” Mayor Eric Adams told a gathering on Sept. 6. “This issue will destroy New York City.”
In a nation of immigrants, New York may qualify as the capital. Almost 40% of its 8.4 million residents were born in another country. Two-thirds of the population in its five boroughs are either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants. But the pace at which the recent migrants have arrived, deliberately intended to stress-test the safety net—and assumptions—of a Democratic stronghold, is unprecedented.
New York City’s right-to-shelter law means officials cannot legally turn away anyone seeking shelter. But the city and state have been fighting in court over the best way to house the migrants: the city sued more than 30 New York counties for issuing emergency executive orders meant to ban the city from arranging asylum seekers to stay in private hotels in their jurisdictions. Sayyid is staying at the Roosevelt, which is a designated arrival center in addition to functioning as a shelter, but getting the space required waiting in line for 10 hours at a stretch for two days. He is so nervous about losing it that he asked that his name not be published; “Sayyid” is a pseudonym.
In June, as those shelters neared capacity, the city created 206 emergency shelters, including so-called respite cen
