NYC Will Send Asylum Seekers To Westchester In Coming Days

YONKERS, NY — In a Friday evening statement about New York City's plans to begin placing asylum seekers in Yonkers over the next few days, Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano decried the neighboring mayor's lack of transparency.

"Yonkers is a City of immigrants and there’s no City that has been more welcoming to them," Spano wrote. "We are compassionate to the plight of asylum seekers and the City of Yonkers will always step up to aid others in need. However, the sheer lack of communication and planning from New York City on this crucial matter is unacceptable."

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Spano said the current plans in many ways leave the local community to foot the bill.

"We are being told families will be housed here for at least a year, yet Yonkers is not being provided the resources on how to deal with the additional schooling, public safety and health services needed to assist these individuals," Spano said. "It is unfair to the asylum seekers and to our City."

In his statement, the Yonkers mayor said that while the community is ready to do its part to help those in need, local officials need to be involved in the decision-making, not just left to pick up the pieces. He also indicated that officials in both New York City and in Westchester are being left to deal with a crisis that can only be solved on the federal level.

"I am calling on and standing at the ready to work with the Governor, New York City’s Mayor, the County Executive, our State Delegation and Yonkers City Council to come up with a plan and the funding needed to benefit our City and our new arrivals," Spano concluded. "This nationwide crisis needs to be handled in a proactive, prepared, team approach."

Meanwhile, other local lawmakers took a decidedly harder line on New York City's abrupt decision to begin relocating asylum seekers to Westchester. New York State Assemblyman Matt Slater and Westchester County Legislator James Nolan released a joint statement calling Adams's moves "unacceptable."

"New York City Government have told state and municipal leaders that they plan to relocate over 100 migrants to the City of Yonkers tonight," the lawmakers said. "They are all families and children but no additional details have been provided. The lack of details is unacceptable for the residents of Yonkers. This is a failure of President Biden, Governor Hochul, and Mayor Adams - not the hardworking taxpayers of Yonkers and Westchester County. We urge Mayor Adams to reconsider this decision. Too many questions remain unanswered for this to be accepted."

For his part, Westchester County Executive George Latimer called for compassion and pragmatism in an address on Tuesday, before New York City informed officials in Westchester that they would be sharing their burden with neighboring jurisdictions.

"Human compassion has to be met with pragmatism," Latimer said. "We must understand that the United States cannot solve the problems of the world. But we cannot turn a blind eye either. We can’t say 'you don’t look like me and therefore I want nothing to do with you.'"

"We have to find a way as human beings who are fallible to find a way through this," the county executive added.

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