Rockland Issues New Emergency Order On Asylum-Seekers

NEW CITY, NY — Rockland County Executive Ed Day has signed a new Emergency Order in response to New York City’s plan to temporarily house asylum seekers outside its borders.

The county is embroiled in lawsuits with the city and the hotel over the city's "decompression" plan to temporarily house some of the thousands of asylum-seekers that have arrived in NYC in the past six months outside the city limits.

The county's previous emergency order was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge June 5. According to the ruling, the original emergency order issued by Rockland "expressly" classified persons "based on national origin and alienage."

"Even during oral argument, counsel for the Rockland County Defendant indicated that financial concerns was just one consideration, but concerns regarding 'life, liberty, and property,' was another major concern. When asked what counsel meant by 'life, liberty, and property,' counsel indicated that there would be public safety concerns, and repeated that the having '340 single unemployed men' come in through the program would cause 'mayhem.' No further satisfactory explanation was given by counsel when asked to explain what was meant by 'mayhem' or where the basis for that concern came from," District Court Judge Nelson S. Roman wrote, issuing a preliminary injunction. "The Court agrees with Plaintiffs that there is enough on the record and as reflected during the oral argument that invidious, discriminatory concerns was one of the motivating factors for the issuance of the Rockland EO."

Judge Roman's decision prevented the use of the local emergency order but had no impact on existing temporary restraining orders issued and expanded by state court judges.

Rockland plans to appeal, Day said Monday.

Meanwhile, the emergency order has been re-written.

"It is my duty to protect the general welfare of anyone in the County or coming to the County both long term and short term," Day said in an announcement about the new declaration. "This County already has a housing crisis so extreme that Rockland has been unprecedently deputized by the State of New York to take over Building and Fire Code enforcement in the Village of Spring Valley. Sending busloads of people to this County that does not have the infrastructure to care for them will likely result in a one-way bus ticket to homelessness."

Emergency Order No. 2 says the migrants are essentially homeless people and it bars other municipalities from establishing shelters in Rockland.

The original order said the county "is not capable of receiving and sustaining the volume of migrants and asylum seekers that New York City intends to send over, whose presence will spike the number of people in need of government services at all levels of government in the County from Villages to Towns and School Districts..."

The city's plan had been to put up roughly 300 people in the Armoni Inn & Suites in Orangetown, paying for meals and services as well as rooms for four months.

The new order accuses the city of planning to "abandon" the migrants after that. It also says the city's program is "discriminatory" but does not elaborate.

The new order says the county "supports thousands of impoverished persons without regard to their origin" and that "Local food pantries in Rockland have run out of food."

"This order’s sole purpose is mandating good and responsible government," said County Attorney Tom Humbach. "It regulates that government operates within existing laws, makes policies that reflect the best interests of the electorate, and supports those who are new to the County as well as those which have been here for some time."

Read the full Emergency Order here.

SEE ALSO:

• Five Hotels Suing Towns, Counties Over Migrant Bans
• Hotel In Orangeburg May Reopen For Guests, Not NYC Migrant Program
• NYC Sues 30 Counties Over 'Xenophobic' Migrant Housing Bans
• Seeking Asylum And Work, Migrants Bused Out Of NYC Find Hostility
• Rockland, Orange Face Off With NYCLU In Federal Court Over Migrants
• State Judge Grants Rockland Restraining Order Over Migrant Plan
• NYC Plan For Migrants Like 'Human Trafficking' - Rockland County Exec
• Illegal Immigration: National Issue, Local Effects: Rockland