By: Jerry Fanusky
Migrants are being shipped to New York City from Florida and Texas and an exclusive report by The New York Post shows that the borough of Queens is receiving these persons in greater numbers in comparison to the other four boroughs.
The situation has become a major problem for the city, which has not figured out a clear way of dealing with the surge of migrants. The city which marketed itself as a “sanctuary city” is not finding a way to provide haven for the new and illegal arrivals.
Queens was housing 4,782 migrants, or 32% of the total 14,777 placed in emergency shelters as of Wednesday, according to data compiled by the Department of Homeless Services and obtained by The New York Post on Thursday. That share is more than one-sixth greater than the 27.3% that Queens residents contribute to the city’s total population, according to 2020 census data.
“It’s a powder keg in Queens at this point,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said in an exclusive statement to The New York Post.” The migrants were being sent even though “there’s not enough resources being pumped into the communities. There are several crises. You have a recession coming. We have a lack of affordable housing, rising rents. We have food insecurity. This is a recipe for a social and economic disaster,” he warned.
The DHS figures show that The Bronx and Manhattan have also taken in more than their fair shares of migrants, based on their percentages of the city’s total population of 8.2 million. But Brooklyn — where Adams was formerly the borough president — was housing just 26% of the migrants while accounting for more than 31% of the city’s population, writes The New York Post team of reporters.
The “forgotten borough” of Staten Island, where migrants have been seen begging near hotels in the Travis neighborhood, the number more than doubled during the past week, surging to 495 from 252 on Oct. 5, that pushed borough’s share to 4% of the total and has it closing in on the 5.6% that Staten Island accounts for in terms of the Big Apple’s population, NY Post noted.
In an email Thursday, City Hall spokeswoman Kate Smart said the DHS data confirmed Hizzioner’s assertion — without addressing the borough-by-borough disparities.
“As the mayor has said, all communities and each borough must come together as we manage this unprecedented humanitarian emergency, which is exactly what these numbers show. To suggest otherwise is purposefully ignoring the truth”, said Smith.
Meanwhile far left congresswoman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as gone all in on supporting illegal immigration, as she let it be known at a recent Bronx Town Hall meeting which ended up being a disaster, complete with fierce opposition (showing up and drilling her on her support for the Ukraine war) and a miniscule crowd of less than 50 people.
The congresswoman said she’s working with City Hall on applying for grants through the Office of Housing and Urban Development, NY Post reports.
“So they are working with that application on emergency housing services. We have a housing crisis in this city. There are many ways we need to respond to it,” Ocasio-Cortez said during a Wednesday night town hall meeting in The Bronx.
“We are in close communication with the mayor’s office and getting the resources necessary. If some states don’t want to do their job on that, that’s fine. But then those federal resources should come to New York City, and those federal dollars should come to places that want to take care of people, and we need that financial support. We are closely monitoring the situation.”
