County Updates On Migrant State of Emergency
It’s approaching two weeks since Rockland County Executive Ed Day declared a State of Emergency to safeguard the County from the irreparable harm by the City of New York’s plan to house 340 migrants in a makeshift shelter inside Armoni Inn and Suites in Orangeburg.
“As stated in the order municipalities are ‘barred from unilaterally deciding to house and shelter individuals in their care by deporting them to Rockland County,’” explained County Attorney Thomas Humbach. “It goes on to say, ‘its sole purpose is to prevent other municipalities from foisting their own policies, including sanctuary city policies, costs, and responsibilities on Rockland County.’”
The State of Emergency was declared to prevent the City’s decompression program from more than quadrupling the number of homeless in the County’s care.
New York City’s current population is approximately 8.3 million, down from 8.8 million in April 2020, contradicting claims that there is no more space for migrants in the U.S.’s largest declared Sanctuary City.
“The fact that the largest City in our entire country believes Rockland, the smallest County in the State of New York, has the resources to undertake this just underscores the lack of planning that was done by the Adams Administration and every single emergency order declared across New York municipalities these last two weeks was done for the exact same reason,” explained County Executive Ed Day.
More than a dozen other municipalities have enacted similar emergency orders including Broome, Chemung, Cortland, Genesee, Greene, Herkimer, Oneida, Orange, Orleans, Oswego, Otsego, Rensselaer, St. Lawrence, Schuyler, and Tioga counties, in addition to the Town of Riverhead, Long Island and the Town of Fishkill in Dutchess County.
All of these municipalities declared emergency orders due to the lack of infrastructure and resources needed to handle a large influx of migrants that the City of New York is attempting to shelter in outlying counties, towns, and villages.
The City of New York’s plan to shift their Sanctuary City responsibilities throughout the rest of New York State resulted in 20 homeless veterans in Orange County and at least two homeless families in Yonkers, including a mom with an 18-month-old, being evicted from hotels for the City’s decompression plan to house migrants with little notice.
“These are the inhumane consequences being caused by the City of New York’s failure to plan for a crisis they knew was coming,” said County Executive Day.
The County’s lawsuit challenges the City’s lack of authority to establish a shelter in the County of Rockland and was granted a Temporary Restraining Order by a judge. The City of New York lost their appeal to remove that Temporary Restraining Order. Both parties are due in court for the lawsuit May 30th.
