This week, New York City unveiled Democratic Mayor Eric Adams’ “tent city” to accommodate migrants sent on buses from the southern border to “sanctuary cities” led by Democrats.
The facility on Randall’s Island will provide incoming migrants with three meals a day, “fluff and fold” laundry services, and “an array of entertainment including TV and video games,” the New York Post reported.
Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol told reporters that the facility is “a place people can come rest, relax and kick their feet up after the journey they have been on.”
Reportedly, a “wave” of 500 single men will begin moving into the facility this week after arriving at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan.
The Post noted that Iscol called it a “short-term solution” for migrants but other officials said that no one will get kicked out for staying beyond four days.
“Our focus is to get you where you want to go and not put a numerical limit in terms of number of hours to restrict anything,” Dr. Ted Long, a senior vice president at NYC Health + Hospitals, told The Post.
The facility is equipped with WiFi with heating and cooling units, 60 dining tables, a recreation room with two popcorn machines, TVs, Xbox gaming systems, ping pong tables, foosball, board games and a phone bank for international calls.
Iscol said on Tuesday that it cost about $325,000 to take apart the initial “tent city” site in the Orchard Beach parking lot in The Bronx and an additional $325,000 to assemble the new one.
“The rest of the costs we’re still analyzing — we don’t know how many people we will be caring for and a lot of the costs are variable, so many of those ongoing costs we’re now figuring out,” he added.
Townhall reported this month that Adams previously said that it will cost $1 billion to care for the influx of migrants being sent from the border.
“This is a humanitarian crisis that started with violence and instability in South America, and it’s being accelerated by American political dynamics,” he said in a press conference. “This crisis is not of our own making,” Adams claimed, adding that “but one that will affect everyone in this city and in the months ahead.”
GOP governors began sending migrants on buses to cities like NYC months ago so that these so-called “sanctuary cities” could share the burden of the border crisis.
As illegal immigrants began arriving in the Democrat-led cities, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) responded by sending the migrants to towns outside the city without giving officials any warning. On the east coast, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) said that the nation’s capital is not a border town and doesn’t have the “infrastructure” to handle the migrants. She requested the Pentagon send the National Guard to help, but her requests were denied.
In NYC, Adams said that the migrants are overcrowding the shelters and schools.
“This is unsustainable,” Adams said in a press conference. “New York City is doing all we can, but we are reaching the outer limit of our ability to help.”