By Jonathan Allen and Ted Hesson
NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City will open two emergency centers to house migrants arriving on buses sent by the Republican governor of Texas in a political dispute over border security, Mayor Eric Adams said on Thursday.
The centers will provide shelter, food and medical care while working to connect migrants with family and friends inside and outside New York City, according to the mayor’s office.
The emergency relief centers are part of efforts by Democratic mayors to deal with thousands of migrants being bused from the Republican-led border states of Texas and Arizona. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican seeking reelection in November, has bused more than 11,000 migrants to Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago since April.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last week flew about 50 migrants from Texas to Massachusetts.
The governors, who oppose the more lenient border policies of U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, say they want to shift the burden to Democratic areas and have focused on the issue in the run-up to November midterm elections.
“While other leaders have abdicated their moral duty to support arriving asylum seekers, New York City refuses to do so,” Adams said in a statement.
New York is bound by a decades-old consent decree in a class-action lawsuit to provide shelter for the homeless.
A center for single adults will open in the Bronx in the coming weeks, the mayor’s office said, with the second site being finalized. More could follow if needed.
The centers for single adults will be climate-controlled tents with rows of cots akin to those used after natural disasters, the mayor’s office said.
The Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless said in a joint statement that they were “deeply concerned” that families with children could be placed in congregate settings, but were willing to work with the city.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
