New Plan For NYC Migrants Includes New Cities, Mayor Won't Say Where

NEW YORK CITY — New York City 's new plan for asylum seekers includes a new arrival center, a job training program and the exporting of migrants to cities that Mayor Eric Adams refused to disclose at a press conference Tuesday.

"We're not telling you," Adams told reporters. "Please don't ask me which cities because I don't need you running to the cities and stopping us from getting asylum seekers there.

"We're telling you when they get there."

The Road Forward — Adams' plan for the city's 50,000-and-counting influx of migrants — replaces Port Authority as asylum seekers' main point with a 24/7 arrival center and includes efforts to resettle some to "their preferred city of choice."

SUNY-Sullivan will also provide job training for 100 asylum seekers who await work authorization, officials said.

Adams declined to disclose where the new arrival center will be located but shared his opinion that — despite concerns raised over flooding centers and cruise ship housing — the city's response was "humane."

The mayor said the city needs to move from an emergency response to a "steady state approach."

The plan also creates a new Office of Asylum Seeker Operations to oversee the new arrival center, resettlement and legal services, Adams said.

"This office is going to allow us to have our other agencies that have been focused on this to go back," Adams said, "to move forward with the obligations that they have in the city."

Adams repeated calls for help from the state and federal levels, and even from local City Council members who oppose having migrant centers in their districts.

To make his point, Adams noted the crisis likely will cost the city $4.2 billion in the next year.

Said Adams, “We cannot do this alone."