New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) will soon begin housing border crossers and illegal aliens in a previously closed Harlem jail as the city has had to deal with the arrival of more than 70,000 migrants since the spring of last year.
According to NY1 Spectrum News, Adams has been given permission by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to move forward with plans to transform the old Lincoln Correctional Center — a 10,000 square foot facility — in Harlem into a migrant shelter.
The jail was closed in 2019 by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).
Adams’ office said in a statement that the jail would become a migrant “emergency respite center” and that no border crossers and illegal aliens would be held in actual jail cells.
“We’re grateful to the state for providing this site and partnering with the city to open this space as a temporary site for asylum seekers as New York City continues to face this humanitarian crisis,” Adams’ office said in a statement.
The latest move comes as Adams has contracted with the owners of New York City’s iconic Roosevelt Hotel, which closed following economic shutdowns from the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, to begin housing thousands of border crossers and illegal aliens in the hotel.
The annual cost to New York City taxpayers will be $75 million.
While waves of illegal immigration are straining public resources, infrastructure, housing prices, and services for New Yorkers, Hochul recently praised the arrival of tens of thousands of border crossers and illegal aliens — suggesting their entry into the local labor market is a victory for corporate special interests looking for ready-to-hire workers with low expectations about wages and benefits.
“There are not enough workers here in the state of New York … at the same time we have this historic labor shortage, we also have this unprecedented influx of individuals arriving in New York — all of them legally seeking asylum. They’re eager to work, they want to work, they came here in search of work, for a new future,” Hochul said.
The cost of current waves of illegal immigration to New Yorkers, who are paying about $5 million every day to deal with the issue, will far exceed $4.3 billion, Adams has said.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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