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Adams talks migrants living on Randall's Island
Mayor Eric Adams addressed concerns over quality-of-life issues over migrants setting up tent encampments on Randall's Island. FOX 5 NY's Morgan McKay took at look at what he had to say as calls grow for more to be done at the national level when it comes to the migrant crisis.
RANDALL'S ISLAND - New York City Mayor Eric Adams addresses some of the growing concerns over migrant tent encampments on Randall's Island on Tuesday.
Tents on the island are scattered across soccer fields, with some migrants sleeping on mattresses under trees.
"I have no shelter," one migrant tells me using a translation app. He says that he has been camping on Randall’s Island, unable to gain access to a shelter for months and has had to sell bottles to make money.
And he’s not the only one.
Makeshift encampments are scattered all throughout Randall’s Island next to the city’s official migrant shelter that houses around 3,000 migrants.
Since the spring of 2022, more than 212,000 migrants have come through the city’s intake system.
"We are in the process of dealing with the encampments," Camille Joseph Varlack, Mayor Eric Adams’ chief of staff said at an off-topic briefing.
The Adams administration didn’t go into further detail on what that means and if they are going to be removing the tents, but insisted that these types of encampments are illegal, even though the city puts up porta potties next to a sort of makeshift market where migrants sell food, water and loose cigarettes.
"A porta potty should never be an indicator that we accepted any form of encampments," Adams said. "I don't want people using our streets as toilet facilities."
RELATED: Randall's Island migrant shelter plagued by unauthorized tents, trash, human waste: Report
A few of the migrants at this makeshift encampment next to the shelter resisted having cameras film them, attempting to block cameras from getting close and then used graphic gestures until we left.
Parks department employees who spoke exclusively with Fox 5, said they at times feel intimidated by the migrants living in and around the shelter.
The city says it is in the process of trying to connect migrants living on Randall’s Island to permanent housing, but say they are also identifying exactly who lives in these tents.
"Whether or not they are asylum seekers, and maybe other individuals, and make sure they have the resources to move on," Varlack explained.
At the end of May, the city implemented a new policy that only allows migrants to stay in a city shelter for 30 days. They can re-apply for a new shelter spot after 30 days, but there are certain requirements, and they must prove that they have been looking for a place to stay.
The Legal Aid Society emphasized that the city needs to do more when it comes to connecting migrants to resources and says that tearing down tents usually only results in tents being set up again in the same spot a few weeks later.
"We asked the city to conduct additional outreach with these sites to try and connect people to resources," Kliff said.
There have been fewer documented migrant arrivals coming through the city’s shelter system over the past few months.
However, there are still currently close to 64,000 migrants in the city’s care and more than 700 migrants are documented to have arrived in New York City just last week.