Errol Louis is the host of NY1’s Inside City Hall and the podcast “You Decide with Errol Louis.” He joins Preet to discuss New York City’s recent influx in migrants. Since last spring, over 113,000 migrants have arrived in the city from all over the world. And the city’s one-of-a-kind “right-to-shelter” law, which guarantees anyone who needs emergency housing will get it, is being debated among city and federal officials.
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Thirteen thousand migrants have arrived in new york city setting record highs for homeless shelter occupancy in the city. Many of the asylum seekers are fleeing political chaos in Venezuela, in what the un refugee agency has called the second largest external displacement crisis in the world. Many also come from countries in africa, so why the sudden influx in new york, texas, governor greg Abbott, made political waves last year when his administration chartered buses to send migrants to the big apple, but the trend extends far beyond the republican governor and even beyond. New york migrants are arriving in other cities, including dc chicago philly and l, a but new york's right to shelter law which guarantees anyone who needs emergency housing will get. It is
one of its kind. In the? U S, city, state and federal officials are figuring out how to address the influx, and they disagree about the approach I'm joined by era louis and new york city based journalist and a host of new york, once inside city hall, he's been reporting on these issues and speaking to local politicians about their policies. Arab love them back to the show when we need to be able to agree to this is an incredibly important issue and is causing a lot of controversy. Can we just start at the beginning,
take it from the top. Why is it that at this moment we have so many more migrants coming into the city than ever before that your great great place to start the reality, as this is a global phenomenon,
red there's, something like one hundred million refugees moving all over the world? And so you pick
corner of the world and find a conflict or a climate design,
steerer or humanitarian disaster,
Or genocide and you're gonna find another flow of people who were trying to weed one country.
And enter another and a lot of them end up here. So there are people who are fleeing literal slavery in Mauritania.
There are women who are trying to avoid female genital mutilation in africa. There's a whole string of countries across the sahel in africa that I've had coups. There's no
government in haiti right now, there's a civil war in venezuela on and on and on and all this is set people in motion.
how and why they exhibit the mexican border and then in new york is where we usually confined the story. But it's really important for contacts to understand that there are people who are fleeing. Are you crazy? You know a couple of million ukrainians crossing
mostly in poland and germany, but a fair number are ending up here as well. So, in the context of that major global phenomenon, alot of people have figured out that if you can get to the mexican border and
Some of this has been turned into a commercial enterprise. There are people who will help you cross the border and then a peculiar combination of but policy choices and a political reality and and law enables you to sort of perhaps find your way out of a desperate situation either even on the other side of the world. If you can just get to the united states, could explain what the scope and scale of the problem, as I mentioned, something in the order of a hundred and thirteen thousand.
Grants in the last year or a year and a half? How much is costing new york well, as with everything involving money in new york, is a dispute. There are conflicting numbers, but in the short term, what the meroz office have shed and again there some dispute about this. But the number that nobody seems to really disagree with is approximately
four billion dollars per year over the next three years. If it continues at this pace- and so you can, you know you do the math you're talking about something like forty thousand per mile,
one thing to keep in mind, though, is that for a lot of people who come here? They don't stay here so, while over a hundred thousand have arrived, something like six,
these animals in our inner city, shelters in hotels and other locations right now. What that means is that forty percent of even moved on
one or didn't want to be here in the first place or perhaps have vanished into the grey economy. But look it's believed that people either didn't want to be here in the first place, so they just needed to sorta catch their breath and get their things too
There remain sound relatives you're in miami or some other part of the united states, but still a large number of very large number. Yes, yes,
it's bad luck, it's more than the city can comfortably handle
speed is over whether or not we can handle the reality as we can. We have you know what they do.
that four billion dollar number than I gave you an only son
like a lot until you compare it to the annual city budget of a hundred and seven billion. So it's a little under four percent of the budget and we'd rather spend that money on something else. But it is not enough.
central threat to the city, or anything like that? There are other places in this country that would have been overwhelmed by these numbers, but in our city of a plus million its
you. We if we didn't report that this many people had come, I'm not sure most new yorkers would have would have realized. He was let's talk about what some of the reason is for the strain of budget and otherwise, as I mentioned at the outset, new york city has a unique law. The right to shelter law can explain what that is and why that's an issue financially for the city to shore. In fact, I always wish. I had you with me when this question comes up, because many many
many. Many people, including a lot of pundits, ought to know better go around talking as if the right to shelter lie in new york was something that was passed by the state legislature of the city count
and signed the law and order be amended or repealed, and nothing could be further from the truth that the right to shelter, what we call the right to shout law is in fact a series of consent- decrees that go back to the nineteen eighties and they involve an interpretation of the state constitution. The new york state constitution, holes that the care and support of the needy.
the public concern and shall be dealt with by the state. I'm paraphrasing, but that's essentially what it says. It's a depression era provision in our state constitution in the nineteen eightys, there was a case, call callaghan versus care
Cohesion was a homeless man and carry was governors. You carry an that law. Suit was resolved with a consent decree that is really the core of the right to shelter. They were going to take that to trial in look like the city and the state were going to lose and Mr Callaghan, who, by the way you have died on this
streets. This was not resolved in time to help this unfortunate man, but what the decision was was that anybody who shows up looking for help needing a
beating a meal, it will be provided by the city and state of new york, and then there have been subsequent amendments and in extensions of that consent, decree and the policies that surround it, that it started to include families. It started to include children, and I just one other thing I would say at the outset: creed is that it's a very specific right. It's not that you know you have a right to get caught. Some place in the city of states is very detailed. It says
It will have to have a place where you can lock the lockable place. Where you can put your belongings, you have to have a certain amount of literally inches of seat space to yourself. We are not crowded and sleeping on top of someone else. Subsequent amendments have have
included a provision that women and children families cannot be an congregate settings, that's round to have been dangerous for their health and their safety, and so it's evolved over the decades into a series of court rulings and policy decrees from city hall that taken together amount through the right to shelter. Right so hearing you speak for people who are not from new york and for people who are from new york. They might have the question. If europe has this very for generous provision in its law on a matter how it came to be the right to shelter law, why is it that we see lots and lots of people who are homeless or unhoused on the streets of new york? You, don't you see some? You don't see as many as you would in a place like los angeles or share francisco or port winner arena. Frankly, and almost any other sitting philadelphia, we go out of our way to provide something, even if it's all a kind of a run down hotel or an apartment. Building that you want necessarily want to stay in very long.
We do a pretty good job, but when you do see people and there's an estimated, I think three thousand of people who are what they call an house, meaning they have turned down each and every opportunity to go into one of the shelters. What one way to interpret that is that's a referendum on what those places are like when people say you know what I'd rather stay on a park bench to go to somebody's place right, so they can't be compelled not. That is correct. They they cannot be. In fact, they can only be cajoled and coaxed and offer different things, and we've occasionally had tv cameras there. You know recording some of those kinds of interactions. There is a belief in some cases that there may be mental illness or addiction, issues that prevent someone from seeing. Clearly what might be,
best interests, but at the end of the day there is a presumption that people have a right to their own choices in their own bodily autonomy and he can't just grab people and throw them into a shelter just because its unsightly or disorderly. What's the thinking about the right to shelter law that you referred to earlier, with respect to changing at modifying it or passing a new law that is even feasible? Is it on the table was the thinking it is on the table at the ice
it's been on the table for every bear ever since they can spread. Decree was signed in the nineteen eighties and there was a somewhat famous
You read the tourist line, it would have used,
during a radio interview where mere bloomberg and multi billion air, the richest person in new york city at the time, said that you can get on a private plain
and flight in new york and have a limo, take you to a social services office, and we would have to provide you shelter in his point.
Although it was it was a pretty crass them to safe by the richest man in the city was essentially correct. We provide safe shelter for whoever, without regard to citizenship, status, citizenship in new york or anywhere else over the united states. So now the current state of play is that the current mayor, like all of his predecessors over his last five predecessors, is trying to get it abandoned, and so, as you know, you can't just decide. You want to change a couple of lines in a consent. Decree you've got to go to court. You've gotta make a case in new york's case
you ve got judges who are the tories we unsympathetic, because again it is the state constitution either. The provision mean something or the provision means nothing and they tend to do interpreted as well. You know sorry, but you're gonna have to comply, and so right now what the mare is trying to do is to enter into some kind of conversation was his adversaries, because this case was brought lie in the other parties. To get sent decree include the legal aid society, the coalition for the homeless, and then they engage in a kind of conversation to try and make sure they preserve the core of the right without completely overlooked
in the city. You know you have to be somewhat practical about this and so are right now they're in these discussions we understand there may be some amendments coming that a court might approve sometime in the near future, but the wholesale apple
it should have. The right is absolutely not going to happen. I would confidently predict that the I mean I don't think any judge is going to say you know what there's too many people here. This is too tough. Those constitution, writers in the nineteen thirties had their heads up their behinds and we're going to go in a different direction. That's just not going to happen. Can you describe notwithstanding that? What the state of public sentiment is in new york city and the direction in which it's moving, you point out. Four billion is not a lot compared to the one hundred and seven billion dollar budget for new york, but it's not chump change and at a time when people think our schools need improvement, we have dilapidated subways and all sorts of other problems boy. We could spend that four billion
dollars better on people who chose to live here and are dedicated to the city as opposed to recently arrived migrants. What do you say to them? Well, do you have there's a lot of talk along those lines? The problem with that case the people trying to make that case is that they can almost never point to a specific problem, or you know, sort of a book for case where they say a lot, but for these migrants I would have had X, Y or z. Now there are a couple of cases
like that. Oh you know there was a decision to put migrants on randall's island and they took over some sporty fields in order to sort of put up some makeshift tents and fill them with cots and so forth, and it turns out that these were the fields where a lot of new york, kids had their their practice fields. The problem or the reality is that it tended to be fancy private schools that were using these fields. So there wasn't that much of a public outcry and there are a number of cases in certain neighborhoods where people say we don't want this sheltered here, but that was going to happen anyway, so that the complaints are not budgetary. So much as why are these people here? What's going on? You know those who are raising the budgetary issues tend to begin city hall, because the real bulk of the financial of the fiscal impact has not fallen. Yet it's going to happen in next year's budget, and so it was.
what's your april going into the june thirtieth deadline next year, that's really going to be where the rubber meets the road. That's where the pain is going to be felt where city services are going to be dial back for certain. The mayor has already tried to, I guess, get people acclimated to the new reality by ordering five per cent cuts from all agencies, they're all supposed to submit plans to reduce budgets, it sort of across the board, and that has got the converse. That's gotten the conversation started and, of course it's a very angry conversation. Yet look, I am part of the reason
we're having this discussion. As I I know, people obviously in federal government, also state government who are not happy and who are upset and are irate and they have some justification for being irate. Do they not sure what people are are upset about because it it all starts to eat out as a cover from day to day there are people who are upset, because the federal government has written a check, and this is ultimately a federal responsibility. That's one category of complaint: there are other people whose complaints
the frank we are based in depth to be polite. Ignorance, when I say these are illegal immigrants, you know that
I do but then gideon, I explained it to them over and over again. It's like it is legal to show up at the border and request asylum is an important law as a matter of fact, and I I ticked off a couple of the kinds of cases of people who could clearly establish that they have a well founded fear of persecution and that they are why we have a law that accepts such persons. So
that level of of complaint. There are the people who can play because anything that changes in their neighbourhood is just not a medically assumed to be negative as and then finally create. Some of this is just racism and xenophobia in vienna, where people are making incredible derogatory statements and assumptions about tina
are these people criminals and on and on and on and on so you can cut out the sort through a lot of it. There's a sort of, I think, a broad coalition that has formed of people who you know pit from the laundry list of reasons that I just cited, and you know altogether to say, like somebody please,
It's just make all of this go away and, of course, policy is not made that way to new york or anywhere else. You may have already rebutted this or responded to it a bit in this interview, but the mayor, the city of new york, Eric Adams recently and famously said, quote this issue the one that we're discussing this issue will destroy new york.
The true reaction to that statement. I you know I I wrote a column about it, cause I I I was so bothered by the statement and, first of all, it's it's literally. It's simply not true right. So why? Then, the question becomes. Why is the mere saying something? That's clearly not true, and it ends up. You know you get into an analysis of like. Is this hyperbole intended to is to get a check from the federal government yeah? What early exactly
the mere has operator on the assumption that if he and others screen loud enough in unison
that alone will compel check from the white house, and I regret to inform city wall that that is simply an unrealistic assumption. They mare ignore
in an interview with cnn, and he has not spoken personally with present invited in more than a year. In fact, he was dropped from the president's on the political side. He was one of the surrogates who is supposed to help the bite and ticket as it moves towards re election. They drop tim from that ticket because
his derogatory comments about the administration and his complaints about their lack of of energy and fiscal support. There are parts of this that the white house can fix. They mostly, however, don't involve money, although it would really alleviate a lot of the fiscal burden on your what's the outlook for the future, so we have one hundred and thirteen thousand or so in recent times. Is that pace continuing and it's one thing to have a four billion dollar burden based on this number of migrants? But if that repeats itself, every eighteen months, the numbers really add up. Where do you
going from here, I think we're gonna hit a level where we level was it'll, be higher than anybody wants. It'll be more expensive than anybody really wants to pay.
Men will have to do what we should have
not long, which is built out in infrastructure to absorb people a week
have something in new york? State government, its tucked away in the secretary of state office, up an albany, call the office of new americans and it really tries to do systematically what you and I have just been talking about, which is a migrant comes here here. She has got a whole host of issues and it's sort of beasts spoke. You know you can't just like assume that all too want you, people who arrived today from venice well, shall we say all have the same meet even if their from the same country, they might qualify for different programmes. They might have different needs. Health needs education needs. In some cases they might be eligible for asylum on an expedited, pat, especially their under twenty one. Here, though, so you don't, we, you really have sort of figure out. How do you get people slotted in directed to the place where they will do them?
good- and you know, that's not in place right now- we ve been so busy trying to simply simplify beds and shelter and food for people who are arriving at a rate of something like two to three thousand every week. That date be administration is not really caught up with this idea of building out an infrastructure, but I think that that's where we're going to end up in his only question,
whether we do it intentionally and systematically and logically or if we just kind of bob, you know build it under emergency conditions, a piece at a time which is probably the most expensive and ineffective and inefficient way to do it or louis thanks for covering the issue and thanks for your insight, thanks for coming on the show thanks. So much glad to be really great.
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Transcript generated on 2023-12-14.