How Mamdani aims to keep NYC’s migrant crisis alive FOREVER

 Just when you thought the migrant crisis was in New York City’s rear-view mirror, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has slammed us into reverse.

He’s ordered the city’s homeless-services agencies to start dismantling the migrant shelter system, setting a Feb. 19 deadline for their plan — while simultaneously letting asylum seekers continue staying in city shelters without time limits, as indefinite long-term guests of the taxpayers.

For years, migrant shelters have operated alongside, not within, the city’s traditional homeless shelter system.

Mayor Eric Adams issued repeated emergency orders to relax the regulations that ordinarily apply to homeless shelters, such as requiring an in-unit kitchen for every family group, to handle the migrant flood.

Mamdani wants to bring migrant shelters into full compliance with those rules, essentially keeping the remaining ones open as homeless shelters.

Of the quarter-million migrants that arrived in NYC since 2022, 31,629 were still in city shelters as of November.

That’s a long way from the peak of nearly 69,000 in January 2024, but the migrants have swollen the city’s shelter population, still making up about 30% of the nearly 102,000 people living in city shelters today.

Each migrant household costs the city $370 per night — about $100 more than an average family in the homeless-shelter system — thanks to the higher costs of emergency contracts.

Closing migrant shelters thus offers Mamdani a way to ease his budget woes while abiding by New York City’s strict right to shelter law, which guarantees an immediate shelter bed to anyone who requests one, with no limit on length of stay.

This right isn’t grounded in legislation, but in a 45-year-old consent decree that settled a lawsuit.

The court appointed the nonprofit Coalition for the Homeless and the Legal Aid Society to monitor the city’s compliance, and these groups must agree to any modification of the rules.

Adams fought for months to weaken the right to city-funded shelter for migrants, and finally secured a concession from the groups in the fall of 2023.

That’s when migrant shelters imposed 30- and 60-day stay limits for single adults and for families with children, respectively (though Adams later eased them for families with elementary-school students).

As migrants moved out Adams shuttered the hotel shelters housing them, while distributing more than 65,000 train, bus and plane tickets — good for a one-way trip to any destination on Earth.

Many who didn’t have another place to stay left the city; as of July, 84% of the migrants that sought city shelter assistance had moved on to other accommodations.

Adams’ strategy to move migrants out avoided billions in public expenses.

Through the end of November, the migrant crisis cost the city $8.77 billion, the bulk of it for shelter.

And year by year, the costs declined.

In the 2024 fiscal year, Adams spent $3.75 billion caring for illegal immigrants, but budgeted $1.3 billion for the current fiscal year.

From December through June 2026, Adams’ budget left about $643 million to spend.

What happened to those who remained in the city and aren’t in shelters?

City Hall has not released details on outcomes for the migrants who left the city’s care, but it’s likely that many — perhaps most — followed the age-old path of doubling up.

When the crisis began in 2022, newcomers claiming asylum often had no NYC connections, making the free-shelter guarantee an attractive option.

But over the years, they developed networks and moved into established immigrant communities.

Social media spread the word that migrants could rent rooms or even beds for modest rates in neighborhoods like Jackson Heights, Corona and Sunset Park.

Like millions before them who entered the country unlawfully yet joined the city’s informal economy, they make ends meet with day jobs and send some money home.

In turn, they’ve grown less dependent on shelters.

But on the campaign trail, Mamdani vowed to end migrants’ shelter-stay limits — and he appears to have quietly made good on that promise.

As corporation counsel, the city’s top lawyer, Mamdani appointed former Legal Aid CEO Steven Banks — an architect of the right to shelter who fiercely resisted Adams’ efforts to impose limits on migrants.

Legal Aid’s website now states, “There are no longer time limits for New Arrivals in DHS shelters or New Arrival shelters in New York City.”

Adams was gradually ending the parallel migrant shelter system with stricter rules for migrants.

Mamdani should have continued his program of closing shelters as migrants’ stays came to an end: Many, as we’ve seen, would have exited the system altogether.

Instead, two weeks ago Mamdani griped that Adams underfunded shelter costs — even as the new mayor worked to undo the limits that allowed Adams to bring those costs down.

Mamdani claims he wants to end the migrant shelter system.

Ironically, his decisions risk keeping migrants in shelters permanently.

John Ketcham is director of cities and a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

https://nypost.com/2026/02/08/opinion/how-mamdani-aims-to-keep-nycs-migrant-crisis-alive-forever/