NEW YORK, CMC – New York Governor Kathy Hochul says the Joe Biden administration has provided New York with a tentative contract allowing the state to utilize Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn as a shelter for Caribbean and other asylum seekers.
Many of the asylum seekers coming to New York from the southern borders of the United States are nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
“Once the final agreement is signed, we will work with Mayor(Eric) Adams and his team to set up a Humanitarian Emergency Relief and Response Center at Floyd Bennett Field to shelter more than 2,000 asylum seekers,” Hochul said.
“We are grateful to President Biden for his support of this initiative and committed to continuing our advocacy on behalf of the people of New York,” she added.
However, the Governor said, “Ultimately, the path out of this crisis is granting work authorization immediately so these individuals can move out of the shelter and into independent living arrangements.
“This site will be critical in the interim for the City of New York to provide humanitarian aid as we work collectively to get people on the path to asylum seeker status and legal work,” she said.
Adams said that, for months, he and Hochul have been urging the federal government to allow New York to use Floyd Bennett Field to help house some of the more than 100,000 asylum seekers seeking care in New York City.
“And I’m grateful we have a tentative agreement to move forward on this site. I thank Governor Hochul for her commitment to pay for this site, and I’m looking forward to more of this kind of partnership with our friends in Albany (New York’s capital) as we manage this ongoing crisis.
“But let’s be clear: because we haven’t seen meaningful policy changes that would alter the course of this crisis, we’ve been forced to play an unsustainable game of ‘whack-a-mole,’ opening new site after new site as asylum seekers continue to arrive by the thousands,” he warned.
“We will continue to advocate for expedited work authorization for asylum seekers, a federal declaration of emergency, and a national and state decompression strategy, and we’re committed to making today’s announcement the beginning of a new era of enhanced partnership between our local, state, and federal governments,” Adams added.
New City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the son of Grenadian immigrants, said he was “glad to see the Governor commit this location and funding to provide shelter for the ever-increasing number of new and aspiring New Yorkers arriving in our city.
“The site is not ideal, but we continue to be left to choose the best of bad options,” he told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
Williams said he will “work to ensure that shelters meet the necessary standards, including security precautions, resource availability, and transportation access to and from the site for migrants and community organizations.
“I hope that this and other actions signal a sustained and increased effort by the state to step up with financial and infrastructural support to meet this humanitarian crisis,” he said.
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