NYC cracks down on growing migrant camps

( NewsNation ) — As cities across the country continue to deal with an influx of migrants, New York City is moving to shrink a growing migrant encampment on Randall’s Island due to an increase in violence .

The city has been combating rogue encampments and complaints about violence for years now since Texas Gov. Greg Abbot began busing migrants to cities with Democratic mayors in 2022.

Since opening in August 2023, the largest migrant shelter in the Big Apple has grappled with outbursts of violence.

Violence on Randall’s Island

In January, three men were charged with manslaughter after a migrant was stabbed to death inside the shelter. In late July, a Venezuelan mother was fatally shot outside the shelter and two others were injured by a man on a moped.

Just last week, another migrant was stabbed in the stomach outside the shelter.

In response to the violence , NYPD officers raided the shelter earlier this month, searching for contraband like weapons or drugs. However, authorities said they did not find anything during the search.

Still, city officials expressed a boiling point had been reached.

“The mayor has been really clear about safety issues. That’s why we wanted to do the administrative inspections that we do there. That’s why we have metal detectors, that’s why we have police officers there. We want everybody to be safe, and that’s one of the reasons why he also wants to decompress that site,” said Anne Williams-Isom, deputy mayor for health and human services.

NYC officials take action

This week, the city began reducing the migrant population at this shelter by about 800 people, which is just over a quarter of the 3,000 asylum-seekers that have been housed there.

The city also implemented a 30/60 rule at all shelters in the city, giving individual migrants a 30-day limit at shelters and families a 60-day limit at a migrant camp.

As NYC’s migrant issue remains in the national spotlight, Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have used images of the disorder and migrants on the streets to attack Democrats about border security and local safety issues.

According to Mayor Eric Adams’ office, the city has accepted more than 200,000 migrants and has helped almost 70% of them get connected with their next steps, which include applying for asylum and obtaining work authorization through the city’s application help center.

However, if you talk to New Yorkers who live near Randall’s Island migrant center, they say scaling back has just pushed migrants to set up homeless encampments. Some of these have led to open-air illegal activity directly on the streets.

That is also something the mayor and officials have begun cracking down on this week.

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