If you have been to a Yankees game, you know how huge the stadium is. Imagine this: the amount of asylum seekers that have passed through New York City since last spring could fill up the whole stadium twice and more—104,400 asylees.
On August 5, the south wing of the McCarren Park Play Center (776 Lorimer Street) began, “to house approximately 80 adult men. While [this] is a suboptimal location to house people, we are doing our best to support and welcome our newest neighbors,” stated NYC Council Member Lincoln Restler.
The Play Center’s website informed, “All programs in the South Wing (including the Media Lab) of McCarren Recreation Center are canceled until further notice while we work to accommodate asylum seekers in the building.”
Despite a NY Post article on August 7 that highlighted distressed comments from a few residents, it appears that there are more voices and actions welcoming these new neighbors.
NYC Council Member Lincoln Restler, Assembly Member Emily Gallagher, State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, and Congress Member Nydia Velazquez organized a clothing drive for the asylum seekers at McCarren Park.
“I am deeply grateful for the outpouring of donations amounting to hundreds of bags of clothes,” Restler said.
As of August 20 there are 59,300 asylum seekers in shelters across New York City according to a press release from the Mayor’s office.
State and city officials believe finding the asylum seekers employment will get them out of shelters. In May, Mayor Eric Adams called for expedited work authorization for the asylum seekers.
“In New York City, throughout our state and across the country we have thousands of unfilled jobs,” Adams said.
NYS Governor Kathy Hochul wrote to President Joe Biden requesting a “more vigorous federal response.” There were four requests outlined in the letter: expedited work authorization, financial assistance for the state and city, authorization to use federal facilities within the state and city for shelter, and to reimburse the state for the cost of deploying the National Guard.
“I’m grateful that Governor Hochul is joining New York City’s calls for federal aid, but we still have a lot of work to do at home in New York. I’m very disappointed to see the Governor’s unwillingness to compel jurisdictions outside NYC to do the right thing by housing asylum-seekers.” Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso said in a press release responding to the letter.
Other Brooklyn officials have expressed support for expediting the EAD process among other adjustments in light of the crisis.
“Asylum-seekers need coordinated and cooperative action from all levels of government, including expedited work authorization, statewide right to shelter and dignified housing,” NYS Assembly Member Emily Gallagher said in a recent social media post.
August 21, Hochul allocated an additional $20M to NYC to help over 30,000 asylum seekers get legal work status and exit the shelters. This solution will work with the NYC Health + Hospitals and the International Rescue Committee to create a triage system that will expedite the process of overcoming barriers to receiving work authorization.
Currently, the U.S. federal protocol for Asylum seekers to find employment requires that they have a pending asylum application that was filed 150 days prior before they can apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD). Then, the asylum application has to be pending for at least another 30 days before receiving an EAD. This is a total of 180 days that asylum seekers have to wait to be able to work.
In the instance that they are granted asylum before this, they are immediately authorized to work. However, if they do not receive asylum, depending on which is later, their EAD will terminate when it expires or 60 days after the asylum was denied.
Since the crisis began, the city has opened more than 200 shelters, set up navigation centers to help asylees find resources, helped submit applications for asylum, and much more.
The Greenline 