Comptroller to probe city’s ‘cruel’ policy that’s evicting migrants after 60 days
City Comptroller Brad Lander said Tuesday he’s launching an investigation into Mayor Eric Adams’ 60-day shelter limit for migrants, citing the “cruelty” of evicting asylum seekers in the dead of winter — including a woman 8-months pregnant.
“I’ve been saying for some time now that this decision to kick families out of shelters in the middle of wintertime, to displace kids from their schools in the middle of the school year, is honestly one of the cruelest things that New York City Hall has done in generations,” Lander said outside The Row Hotel, where at least 40 migrant families are being booted under Adams’ decree.
“But I honestly did not know when I said that that we would be kicking out women who are eight months pregnant out of a shelter we’re providing as the result of a law that guarantees right to shelter in New York City.”
Expectant mom Maria Quero, a 26-year-old migrant from Venezuela, said she and her husband have been staying at The Row Hotel for five months — but are now being kicked out and are forced to re-apply for a shelter spot elsewhere.
“The most distressing thing is not knowing what’s going to happen, how long will it take for us to be relocated, where are they going to send us?” she said. “That’s the most distressing thing — not knowing where we’re going to go.
“I don’t have any family. I’m about to give birth and I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Quero said. “I don’t have anywhere to stay. What worries me most is that they’ll send me to a tent [shelter]. That worries me very much because of my condition.”
Quero is among 40 families being kicked out of The Row — and among about 4,800 migrants with children citywide who will have to reapply for a new 60-day stay in a city shelter under Adams’ directive, which also dictates that single asylum seekers must re-apply for a spot every 30 days.
Lander said Tuesday that the policy is not only cruel but “poorly communicated.”
“What information is actually being provided to people? Are there protocols for the 60-day evictions?” he said. “What language is that information being provided in?”
Lander said his office will review how the city is tracking the migrant stays.
“We want to know what they’re tracking in terms of how much this costs,” he said. “Obviously there are increased costs of certain things like providing busing or transfers or so-called re-ticketing. So, what are the costs? What are they tracking?”
Migrants being evicted are told to check in at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown, the city’s main intake center for migrants from the US border.
Outside the hotel on Tuesday, Dr. Theodore Long, a senior vice president at New York City Health and Hospitals, said the city would “move heaven and earth” to help the displaced migrants.
“I have kids and would never let them sleep on the street,” Long said. “No one wants their kids to live in a hotel. Stability comes from planning.”
But for the migrants being booted the future seemed suddenly uncertain.
In a statement Tuesday, a spokesperson for Adams said the city’s approach to the migrant crisis “is clearly working,” and said nearly 60% of the asylum seekers have taken a step toward self-sufficiency.
The shelter limit “is another tool in our very limited toolbox” to help migrants move on, the mayor’s office said — and is similar to policies implemented in other sanctuary cities like Chicago and Denver.
“We have been in close contact with the comptroller on how this plan would work, providing information on case management to school placements, which is why the step he is now taking is particularly puzzling,” the statement said.
“I’m really sad,” said Ardeche Julia Nitsame Mve, a migrant mom from Gabon. “I didn’t want it to happen like this but we have no choice. It’s life.”
Colombian migrant Armando Gutierrez said he and his wife Andrea Pillar — who is 5 months pregnant — were also left to find a new place to bed down.
“They told us a month ago, which is not enough time to find a job or a place to live,” Gutierrez said. “These people are kicking out pregnant people.”
About 162,000 migrants from the US border have arrived in the Big Apple since the spring of 2022, with nearly 70,000 still under city care at various hotels and shelters in the five boroughs.
Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy
