New York mayor says Biden border policy eased flow of migrants
The wave became a trickle as the city opened a sprawling new intake center.
TroibNews 
NEW YORK — A shift in the Biden administration's border policy seems to have stanched the flow of Latin American asylum-seekers coming to New York City, Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday — just as the city brings online costly emergency shelters.
“It’s clear that we navigated through this storm,” Adams said at an unrelated press briefing. “We don’t believe we’re there yet, but we need to really look at how this administration dealt with a real crisis.”
Migrants have been coming to New York by the thousands — many sent by GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Democratic El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser — pushing the shelter system to its breaking point in what Adams has called a potentially $1 billion "humanitarian crisis."
As he declared a state of emergency earlier this month, the mayor called on the federal government to ease the flow. And last week, the Biden Administration announced beefed-up checkpoints and the creation of a streamlined asylum process for Venezuelans, who comprise a large portion of the arriving migrants. Under the new policy, Venezuelan asylees who enter the United States illegally will be returned to Mexico.
“I had to tell New Yorkers what we were dealing with, and what I needed from the federal government — and the president responded,” Adams said Thursday. “They did a decompression strategy.”
Around 10 buses were arriving daily before the Biden border-policy change, the mayor said. Now, just two coaches have pulled up to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in the last two days.
The slowing arrivals come just as the city opens a pair of intake centers, one for families in a midtown hotel and another for adult men in a tent complex on Randall’s Island. The latter alone cost the city at least $650,000 after an initial site proved too flood-prone and the whole operation had to be moved.
The tent facility has been mired in controversy since it was announced in late September. Officials say relocating the facility will ultimately save money, because the new spot does not require flood mitigation.
On Thursday, the second day the facility was open, POLITICO observed little activity. Staffers and members of the National Guard milled about the fenced-off site, which seemed to be largely devoid of asylum-seekers. The center, which has nearly 1,000 beds, reportedly admitted two people on its first day, Wednesday.
The city said it's opened dozens of emergency shelters for the more than 15,900 asylum-seekers in its care but would not provide site-specific numbers.
