The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella policy and advocacy organization that represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York State, urges Mayor Eric Adams to continue welcoming Caribbean and other asylum seekers with “open arms.”
Many of the asylum seekers arriving in New York from the Southern Border of the United States are nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Adams last week issued an executive order restricting how buses of asylum seekers being sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott could arrive in New York City.
Since issuing the order, immigration advocates say buses have still arrived at the Port Authority in Manhattan, other parts of Manhattan, and increasingly in nearby New Jersey.
The mayor is now urging other local governments around New York City to issue similar executive orders.
Murad Awawdeh, NYIC’s executive director, told Caribbean Life on Tuesday that while Gov. Abbott is “engaged in a political game of one-upmanship, with no regard for its human impact,” Adams, on the other hand, “can and must do better than try to beat Abbott at his own bigoted political and inhumane games.”
“It’s clear by now that the mayor’s executive order has only created further chaos and confusion for newly arriving asylum seekers, as well as throwing them into potentially harmful situations,” Awawdeh said.
“Instead of advocating for similar measures, which will put people’s health and wellbeing in danger, Mayor Adams should be coordinating with local community-based organizations, who have already been welcoming new arrivals for over a year at all hours of day, night and on weekends,” he added. “The mayor’s message should be the same today as it was more than a year ago: ‘NYC will continue to welcome asylum seekers with open arms, as we have always done.’
“He should be reinforcing our city’s values by welcoming new arrivals with dignity, especially when another political official is determined to foment mayhem,” Awawdeh continued. “When we invest in humane solutions, we’re exponentially investing in our future. But when Mayor Adams rips a page from Gov. Abbott’s playbook, we all lose.”
In his Executive Order 538, dated Dec. 27, 2023, Adams directed that an operator of any charter bus, coming from the Southern Border, “who knows or reasonably should know that such charter bus will be transporting 10 or more passengers, who are likely to seek emergency shelter and other immediate services in New York City, must comply” with certain requirements.
He said these include providing a manifest of passengers to the Commissioner at least 32 hours in advance of the anticipated date and time of arrival of the charter bus in New York City or on departure from the charter bus’s point of origin, whichever is later.
Unless prior approval has been requested and obtained through the exemption process, the mayor said the manifest shall include the number of passengers on such bus who arrived in the United States within the previous 90 days; and, if the operator has relevant information, the number of such passengers that are likely to seek emergency shelter and other immediate services in New York City.
The mayor said the manifest should also include the number of such passengers who are single adults traveling alone, and the number of such passengers who are members of a family, including specifying separately the numbers of families with children.
In addition, he said the manifest should comprise the number of passengers who are children;
the bus driver’s name; and a description of the charter bus, including color, license plate number, and any logo or other information printed on the bus exterior that could assist city employees with identifying the bus.
Adams also said the operator of a charter bus must direct the bus driver to drop off passengers in New York City only between the hours of 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, “unless prior approval for drop off at a different time has been requested and obtained through the exemption process.”
He said drop-off during official holidays observed in New York City is prohibited, subject to the exemption process.
The mayor said that, over the past several months, thousands of asylum seekers have been arriving in New York City, from the Southern Border, “without having any immediate plans for shelter”, and that the city “now faces an unprecedented humanitarian crisis that requires it to take extraordinary measures to meet the immediate needs of the asylum seekers while continuing to serve the tens of thousands of people who are currently using the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) Shelter System.”
