NYC Considers Sending Asylum Seekers To Shuttered Rikers Jail

NEW YORK CITY — New York City officials are thinking about sending asylum seekers to a jail on Rikers Island, according to Mayor Eric Adams and a new report.

The Otis Bantum Correctional Center, a 1,700-bed jail closed last year over staffing shortages, is being considered as a future shelter for incoming migrants, the Daily News reported Wednesday.

“We are going to look at everything," Adams told reporters hours later. "As we roll out what we’re doing, we will announce."

Adams said the city has a list of 400 such potential locations.

This would not be only the latest controversial option that Adams has put on the table as 4,200 migrants arrived in the city during the last week alone.

Twenty school gyms and NYPD buildings have both been floated as potential migrant housing centers, or actively used as them. The city also tried to voluntarily bus asylum seekers to nearby counties, which drew an outcry.

Space is running out as more migrants arrive, Adams said Wednesday, noting that nearly half of the city's hotel rooms are now being used to house asylum seekers.

The mayor then argued the city has perhaps been too successful and that's why so many asylum seekers are arriving.

"I think we're a victim of our success," he said. "That people say, 'OK, they can handle it. No matter how many come, they can handle it. It's New York.'"

Adams said the city can't handle the strain, at least not without help.

Other city leaders and advocates, however, argued Adams' actions have been haphazard or even inhumane.

Council Member Carlina Rivera tweeted the fact Rikers Island is being considered for migrant housing is a sign of failure.

"The Mayor has had a year to utilize City agencies to make a plan, and this is a troubling indication of an inadequate response," she wrote.

"The cruelty is the point, and the crisis is failed leadership.”