(NewsNation) — In a bid to manage the growing migrant crisis in New York City, the city will be changing its policies around sheltering migrants.
Starting soon, New York will end its sheltering of single adults after they’ve been in the city’s care for two months. Evictions will begin Saturday.
One unnamed source close to City Hall told Politico that the decision was in relation to the belief the shelters were attracting migrants to the city.
“The sense is that people didn’t fully understand just how accommodating New York City was to migrants until now, from a lot of these areas, and now it’s a big reason that people are coming here,” the source said. “But if the understanding is you’re not guaranteed a place to stay, that affects the flow.”
The city currently has around 60,000 migrants in its care. The surge in migration began last year when Texas’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott started paying for bus fares for migrants to head north.
Critics of the new move, like progressives on the city council, argue that it will simply increase the number of migrants on the street.
“Directives like this that are not fully thought-out and are entirely short-sighted will have really dangerous, harmful repercussions, including street homelessness,” said Shahana Hanif, who also chairs the council’s immigration committee.