NYC Mayor Adams unveils plans for asylum application center to assist migrants

New York City is planning to open an asylum application center in the coming weeks to help migrants formally apply for asylum — a necessary step in securing permits to work legally in the U.S.

Mayor Adams announced the plan to open the new help center Tuesday morning — weeks after elected officials and homeless services providers criticized him for not doing enough to help the thousands of migrants who’ve streamed into the city in recent months with navigating the asylum application process.

“The Asylum Application Help Center will assist the asylum seekers in New York City through the complex federal immigration process, bringing them one step closer to being eligible for work authorization and the ability to support themselves,” Adams said in a written statement put out by press release Tuesday morning. “We must act swiftly to ensure the well-being of the thousands of migrants whose deadline to submit an asylum application is fast approaching, and this center will help us do that.”

Since last April, more than 70,000 migrants have come to the city, most of them from Latin American countries. To secure permits to work in the U.S. legally, those seeking asylum must file their applications within a year’s time.

For months, Adams has been pleading with the federal government to loosen restrictions around work permits with the expectation that such a move would relieve the strain the migrants have put on the city’s homeless shelters and social services infrastructure.

His rhetoric around the migrant crisis has become more and more critical of the federal government since last year, and Tuesday’s announcement kept with that pattern. In the statement his press team put out, Team Adams notes that the center is being created “in absence of national strategy.”