State taxpayers are now on the hook for a 2,000-bed migrant shelter at the old Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn in a deal that took New York politicians months to hammer out with the Biden administration.
Mayor Eric Adams has been appealing for permission from Washington all summer to use hangers at the former naval base to house some of the nearly 100,000 migrants who have flooded the city under President Biden’s immigration plan. Not only did it take a while for the approval, but requests for federal funding to relieve local taxpayers of the burden have fallen on deaf ears. It wasn’t until Gov. Kathy stepped in and pledged state money for the immigrant camp did the Department of Interior, which controls the former air station as national parkland, allow its use.
New York officials first requested use of the 1,000-acre property in May as city shelters began filling up and Big Apple hotel space, 50% of which is now occupied by the homeless, was becoming scarce. Adams and Hochul put themselves and the taxpayers in a bind by holding out New York as a “sanctuary” where illegal immigrants are welcome. Their offer of free housing, food, medical, and other services quickly faded as thousands of migrants started showing up. Global shame fell upon the city–and the Biden administration as a whole–when images circulated of hundreds of migrants sleeping on cardboard boxes outside of the Roosevelt Hotel, a grand icon of the city’s glorious past that was converted into a migrant intake center.
The delay by the Biden administration in inking the lease deal has been attributed to Gov. Hochul asking for federal funds to pay for the encampment. Once she agreed to shell out state dollars, the feds said okay. Hochul is quickly burning through the $1.5 billion she budgeted for immigrant services, while Adams shocked Empire State taxpayers recently when he said Biden’s migrant policies will cost the city $12 billion over the next two years.
Local residents are not happy with the Floyd Bennet plan and are pressuring Adams and Hochul to change course. “The community is very stressed out and tensions are extremely high, and rightfully so,” said James Brennan, a native of Rockaway Beach. “They're taking in a massive amount of people and, from what they're telling us, that number could be as high as 7,500 individuals. There are no services for them. They're putting them in a place where there's no access to stores or jobs or even any type of education. Clearly, these people have suffered through their migration to get to this point, but I don't think they know what's coming to them next, especially in a place that's been abandoned for, I don't know, 50-60 years.”
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Meanwhile, it's an inhumane scenario for the people that are coming in.” He said his neighbors are also worried about crime and the lax policies of the Queens district attorney. “The police have a lack of tools in managing situations like this. They can't stop them; they can't ask them if they're legal or illegal immigrants. If they're caught doing something, they're released immediately.”
Brennan continued: “This is not a real solution and all they’re doing is kicking the can down the road while upending a community of hard-working Americans, middle-class citizens, who are making this city run. I'm talking about firemen, sanitation workers, nurses, and iron workers. They are the backbone of America and they're just slapping them in the face and saying you deal with it, and it's just not fair.”
“This is something we’ve been asking about, hoping for, for many, many, many months,” Hochul told reporters when the deal was announced. She boasted that the state would not pay rent to the federal government to use the defunct base, and noted that Biden is not expected to transfer ownership of the property which is now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Prior to the agreement, the federal government had raised legal concerns over housing migrants on public parkland.
“The answer one month ago was ‘no’ — that this is land owned by the Department of Interior, National Parks, and they do not allow for use of shelters on any of their properties,” Hochul recounted. “So, I'm viewing this as a significant development by the administration in Washington to acknowledge that we need more help here.”
“Since the Biden administration ended the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, there has been an uncontrollable tidal wave of asylum seekers pouring into cities all across the country as they wait for their cases to be heard,” noted state Senator Dean Murray (R-C, East Patchogue). “That has led to billions of tax-payer dollars being spent to house, clothe, and feed the migrants–meaning there are billions of dollars not available to help our seniors, our veterans, and other legal, tax-paying U.S. citizens that are struggling to survive,” Murray said, adding, “Governor Hochul should not be asking the federal government for more tax dollars to pay for a bigger bandaid for the current migrant crisis. Instead, she should join the call for President Biden to secure the border and immediately begin negotiating with the Mexican government to put the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy back in place.”
For his part, Mayor Adams said, "I’m looking forward to more of this kind of partnership with our friends in Albany as we manage this ongoing crisis." The full details of the Floyd Bennett deal haven’t been released, but Hochul said it could be expanded beyond the currently planned 2,000 beds. A photo accompanying news coverage of the shelter shows rows of cots reminiscent of what it looked like during World War II when soldiers were housed at the base. Hochul noted that the space will be air-conditioned and heated, and will be available for use during the upcoming winter by single adults, a plan designed to free up hotels and other more appropriate shelters for women, children, and families.
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Adams is in a war with the suburbs as he looks to relocate the migrants to Long Island and other communities throughout the state. Officials in Suffolk County approved the hiring of a special counsel to advise them on how they could respond to any relocation attempts and were promptly sued by the mayor. Another 31 named municipalities, whose elected leaders stress that local taxpayers cannot afford to provide the services required by the immigrants, won a court decision allowing the cases to be heard in the individual jurisdictions, rather than in Manhattan.