New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) revealed on Monday a migrant mother took her own life while staying at a city-run homeless shelter amid an increase of processed and released migrants from the southern border stressing the city's housing system.
Adams said the woman and her two children arrived in the city last May from Colombia, according to NBC 4. The mother had been separated from her husband at the U.S.-Mexico border and they had been unable to be reunited.
A source told NBC 4 the woman's 15-year-old son was the one who discovered her after her apparent suicide.
"The thousands of asylum seekers we have seen arrive in our city came to this country seeking a better life. Sadly, though, yesterday, an asylum seeker in one of our facilities took her own life,” Adams said in a statement.
Adams said the situation was sad but it was not the fault of the city's homeless shelter system.
"We didn't fail in this city. This city is helping people and again, my heart goes out to that family," he said. Around 8,500 migrants are currently being housed in New York City homeless shelters as hundreds are arriving to the area on a daily basis due to the historic number of illegal crossings at the southern border.
Adams has said the extra influx of released migrants staying at homeless shelters is causing the system to reach its breaking point.
According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), there have officially been over 2 million recorded illegal immigrant encounters during fiscal year 2022, with one more month to go. CBP's encountered numbers do not include the large number of illegal immigrants who managed to avoid apprehension by law enforcement, which have also reached all-time highs.
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