 Good afternoon everyone. My name is Ann Williams Isom and I am the New York City Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services and I've been one of the leaders in the city's response to the asylum seekers since the very first asylum seeker came to this five boroughs over a year ago. I'm joined today by Dr. Ted Long, Senior Vice President for Ambulatory Care and Population Health at New York City Health and Hospitals. Ted and his team have been managing the Humanitarian Emergency Relief Response Centers. We call them HERCS. We've been here this afternoon to provide an update on the asylum seeker crisis facing the city, how we are responding, and what we need from our state and federal partners and government. First off, I want to say that we have been facing one of the single most significant humanitarian crisis in recent memory with more than 67,000 people seeking asylum coming through our system since last year. I know that's a large number, so to put it into perspective that's larger than the entire population of the city of Utica, New York, or to say it another way, it would fill Madison Square Garden three times. As Title 42 has lifted, we've seen the number of arrivals climb. The daily arrivals increase from approximately 200 to 300 a day to 600 to 700 a day. Apps in coordination with the state and groups sending asylum seekers, we have no knowledge of how many people are set to arrive at Port Authority on any given day. Let me get into the numbers a little bit more with a little bit more detail. Over the past week, 4,300 asylum seekers have arrived here in New York City. We have over 41,500 people currently in our care and over 67,000 people have been in our care since the beginning of the crisis. We have opened over 150 emergency sites, including the Humanitarian Relief Centers. This sets the scene for what we have been doing and what we continue to face on a daily basis as we work together to support children, families, and individuals newly arrived in New York City every day. Within the last few days, the mayor has announced that we will be opening our ninth Humanitarian Relief Center at the Roosevelt Hotel and it will serve as a dedicated 24-7 Arrival Center, a key component to the city's blueprint to address New York City's response to the asylum seeker crisis. Now let me turn it over to Ted to give more details specific to those developments. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Ted Long. I'm a primary care doctor in the Bronx and Senior Vice President at New York City Health and Hospitals, helping to lead the operations for emergency humanitarian centers or HERCS and helping to lead operations for our new Arrival Center, which I'm looking forward to telling you more about today. To get started, what's unique about New York City is how we've sought to make asylum seekers feel welcome when they come to us. This is very different than in Texas and in other states where asylum seekers have not been welcome. They've been put on buses, they've been sent away, here to us. Now I know that asylum seekers haven't felt welcome because I've seen the children and families get off of the buses they're being sent here and I've seen the children look frightened, scared, and hungry, and the parents and other adults looking exhausted and scared themselves. Here in New York City, we've done the exact opposite. We've welcomed asylum seekers and here's why it matters. For one of the most powerful experiences you can have in New York City, go at 7 a.m. to any of our humanitarian centers and see the children, our newest DOE students, rush out to the school buses. They've smiles wrapped around their faces and these are the same children that I saw that were tired, scared, and hungry a matter of weeks or months ago. Their lives have been fundamentally changed by what we've been able to do and offer them in New York City. Today we take the next step forward in our mission, opening our new arrival center. This brings together all of the successes and all of the lessons learned from having taken care of asylum seekers for this past year into one place. To walk through what the experience will be for asylum seekers, if you're an adult traveling with your family, if you're a child or if you're adult traveling alone, you may come from a plane, a train, an automobile, or a bus. However you get to us, we will welcome you at the new arrival center. When you walk through the front door, we'll offer you food. We'll offer you a dignified welcome. Then we're going to sit down with you and have an important conversation, one that we've honed over the last year in terms of how to have. We're going to talk to you about where you're trying to go and what it would take to help you to complete your journey. We're going to take as much time as that takes. If it goes into the night, you can even stay at the hotel overnight. Our goal here is to do everything in our power to quickly help you to take the next step in your journey. In addition to that, one of the things that we've learned operating our humanitarian centers is want to move as much as we can upstream to be able to offer as many services we can initially to help you to take that next step quickly. At the arrival center, we're going to have medical services, mental health services. We're going to bring in many of the services that are currently offered at the navigation center. We're going to offer health insurance enrollments, potentially public school enrollments, IDNYC. We're also going to offer you a warm place to stay that night if that's what you need. Our experience in taking care of asylum seekers so far, which we've been doing over this last year is what's really informing the new arrival center. We're taking everything that we've learned, everything that's worked well, putting it under one roof. And these are things that we've honed and done tens of thousands of times in taking care of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers that we've seen in our humanitarian centers alone. Now, in New York City, our compassion is infinite, but our space is not. I am proud to be a member of Mayor Eric Adams' team because he has led the country and what it takes to truly help people coming to our country seeking asylum, seeking a better life. We've helped more than 67,000 asylum seekers, as the deputy mayor said. Today, though, we need help. We need other cities, other states to raise their hands. And what we need is for them to do exactly what we've done here in New York City for the last year. We need them to raise their hand to help. It doesn't need to be taking on 67,000 asylum seekers as we have in New York City. But if everybody does their part, then collectively, we can succeed in being able to help and change the lives of people coming to our country as we've proven we have the power to do so in New York. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Ted. Before I open up for questions, I want to reaffirm what you've seen presented by our budget director in recent weeks, the financial costs that this crisis and the associated trade-offs for the city. We have spent $1 billion and anticipate spending $4.3 billion through June of 2024 to manage the tens of thousands of people who have already and still will be coming to New York City from their home countries. That's all to say we need help. I'll say it again that our state and our federal partners, we need help from you all. The city's shelter capacity is full, and we have exhausted options for traditional shelter sites for the migrants. We are now turning to temporary alternative options like gyms and large open spaces for some relief. Let me be clear, this is not our preference for shelter, but it is the only option that we have. And the city will continue to meet existing legal obligations. However, the city is facing one of the biggest things that we have and we need others to share in this responsibility. We know that the issue cannot be resolved without federal intervention to manage the overarching policies and practices that affect our country's borders and our country's asylum-seeker processing systems. Additionally, we need financial help. We need logistical help. We need a real decompression strategy. Across the state and the country, frankly, we need the federal resources to manage the processing of asylum-seekers more efficiently and more effectively, and we need a longer term policy solution to this issue. We need comprehensive immigration reform. There's no way of going around that. Something the President and the Democrats have been fighting for for decades to accomplish. We as a city will continue to respond to the presenting issues, but that action is not going to be able to be enough. And there are significant costs and challenges. We need others to share in that cost and to share in those challenges. And in that spirit, we will do our part to keep open lines of communication with all of our elected officials and stakeholders in every New Yorker to keep them informed of the situation. We only ask that in return, we get a good faith effort for help. We've seen too many criticism couched in half-truths. We've got to do this together for the benefit of all New Yorkers. If you don't like what we're doing, I can understand we can have difference of opinions, but we're asking for constructive real suggestions, not idle talking points. Ultimately, we are here today because we want to be transparent about what the city is addressing in this crisis. With that, I'll open it up for questions. If you could speak to the administration's decision first to utilize school, gym, students in next door buildings for migrants, and then the decision to reverse that we were reporting that this is moved. So do you want to just talk a little bit about that? And then also the decision, I guess, to potentially house migrants on Rivers Island. So I would say we are at a crisis point right now. And with over 150 emergency sites that we've opened and 67,000 migrants that have come to us, we have to make sure that we are protecting all New Yorkers. We're at a breaking point. We are at a breaking point. We've been saying, and I know that people think that it's not true. And so we really need help from others in order to get this done. I'm not going to speak to any specific locations right now, Katie, but all I'll say is that we have said that everyone is going to be effective, all New Yorkers, all of our services. And so we really want to make sure that we're having places that are appropriate for people. The school was always going to be what we've called a respite site short-term. And the reason we had to do it was because of the influx that we've gotten. I think over the past day there was one day where we got over 900 people in one day. I've made and the mayor has made a commitment to not have anybody sleeping on the streets. We do not want to look and feel like other cities. And so that's why we're making the decisions that we are. And everything's on the table right now. I was wondering, you've also tried to send people to some of the counties surrounding New York and they've gotten TROs and joining the city from doing so. I'm wondering, has there been any progress on the legal front there? Are you looking at other counties that haven't sued? And if asylum seekers arrive today, where can they expect to go if the hotels are all full? So I love that you say that because I think you're exactly right. We are at a breaking point and we are in the midst of this crisis, 67,000 and not really having a sense of how many are going to show up. And so we have a plan that we look at in terms of where we can be, where we can place people. But we really need support from the state and other jurisdictions so that we can have people be in safe places. We've heard, understood that the folks that have been sent to other places are there, they're safe. And that's what's most important to us is making sure that our state partners help us to to have places and to decompress the people that are coming to New York City. There's absolutely just no more room right now. We're just trying to get to everyone. Yes, the uh is the city um actively discussing housing any of the migrants in currently vacant office spaces? Can you characterize what your the negotiations are there? What some of the obstacles are? Especially given the fact that I think the vacancy rate in offices is supposed to stay at like 20% for the next five years. It seems like a bunch of empty space. So what I want New Yorkers to really understand in this moment is that we are in an emergency and that we are at a breaking point for the system. So we are putting all options on the table and we are going to look at everything and make the best decisions that we can for the families and children and individuals that we have housed already and for the New Yorkers that are here. So what are the obstacles to getting offices? We're trying to get everyone. It's about the migrants that are arriving at the city's airports. Now I've been told that there is no formal assistance for them that thus far it's been volunteer groups stepping up to do it but now they're running dry. Is the city concerned about the possibility that there will be migrants sleeping overnight at places like LaGuardia, JFK, Newark? Maybe Newark is not. So that's my question and I also wanted to ask, I hear today that there were a hundred people that are at Ford Authority Bus Terminal and they still have not been transported. Can you give us an update? So the reason I love your question is because you're talking about the fact that we are at a breaking point in the system and that we need support. So when at the airports there are migrants that are arriving at the airport I don't think there would be any way for us to really figure out which terminal, which place, some of them are coming in three or four at a time. It really speaks to the point that while we're talking about these big numbers right now for the past couple of weeks I've been getting 100, 200 every day because people are coming in from all different points of entry and so we're not going to be putting services at the airport because we just think we don't, we don't have the staff, we don't have the ability to do it right now and so we have to make priorities so that we don't have people sleeping on the street. But we really are in the midst of a terrible crisis that I know that we've been handling well but now we are ringing the bell and saying that we need more support. We need support from the city council folks to give us more locations and ideas. We need support from our state folks to open their arms as Dr. Long said so that we can send people up there so children and families can have a place to sleep and we need support from the federal government to get people working and to make sure that we have a decompression strategy. I don't think that New York City should have to do this on its own. I think this is a question for Dr. Long. Have any counties or cities raise their hand in upstate to take any of these migrants thus far and then also for the deputy mayor for the schools that are being taken offline as temporary facilities how much does it cost to um because I know the cuts were brought into these schools how much does it cost to do that breakdown and also where will those migrants go uh that were at these schools? No, just first question. Everyone gets one question. So for your first question it was around what have other counties been telling us. So what I will say is that we did join Mayor Adams and had a meeting with all of the other mayors and county executives across New York States and shared with them exactly what the deputy mayor shared that we're in an unprecedented time it's a time of crisis and this is where we need help and then we'll have to circle back with you about the ongoing response that we're getting from them there but we did have that meeting and clearly articulated where we needed help and how. Thank you Deputy Mayor. Speaking of the schools and of breakers um is the city moving away from housing migrants at uh city hotels if so why are hotels no longer an option? Because we're at really a crisis point I wouldn't say that hotels are no longer an option I would say that we don't have many more hotels to go into we're at a breaking point right now and so we're just trying to make sure that no one is sleeping on the street and that we are asking our partners to open up their arms so that we'll be able to make sure that migrants get the support that they need. I was just going to emphasize because this is an important point the deputy mayor is making we've looked at and vetted more than 500 sites to date ranging from hotels to office buildings that were mentioned earlier and we're currently using hotels and office buildings to offer as part of our humanitarian response for our asylum seekers so the point is everything is on the table and we've looked at more than 500 and we're continuing to work extremely hard to have to open up every option that we can it's just when you have the deputy mayor said on some days more than 900 people coming into our city on top of the 67 000 that we've been able to help so far it means that we have to be opening many new places and we are exhausting the opportunities in New York City. So when migrants are arriving here where are they going it's the 900 come in today where are they going we're doing the best that we can that's why we're saying that we're in the midst of the crisis so we connect them to the best place that we can that makes sense for them we just really need a lot of support from the state because we would love to be able to be decompressing folks to other parts of the state. Deputy Mayor at what point will you stop opening up new sites if the city really is at a breaking point which we see it must be close to a breaking point unless you're just willing to continue opening every possible congregate place that you can come up with and is that part of what the city's message needs to be so that people won't just assume that the city will continue to house everybody who comes. I imagine you have to already ask other cities to step up. So I think Melissa the interesting thing about this is we've been trying to ring this alarm for a very long time and it seems that now people are really waking up to the extraordinary effort that this administration has been doing to house the 67,000 migrants that have come with really no idea about how many more will come. I think this is why we need support and this is why we've been asking for partnership and this is why yes the criticism is okay but we need additional solutions and so I think that's that's what this is about and why we wanted to talk to New Yorkers directly to tell them where we are in this process of over a year of doing this work. Yeah Steve go ahead. Go ahead Steve. Thanks. Sensing a bit of a pattern shift here the city has kept us very up to date on where new shelters are going, where new hotels are going and now we're not being told where new arrivals are going. Is there any reason for that? So I wouldn't say a shift. I think we've always been careful about people's safety. For me is the most important thing about migrant safety. We've seen a lot of different things where we know that everybody doesn't really want their best interest at hand. So my first job is to make sure that they are safe and that they are cared for. So no shift. I think every time we open a humanitarian center we tell you where that is. So I just want to make sure that our priorities are clear, that we're keeping people safe, all those families, the children and individuals and so that's the only shift. I think this whole briefing today has been about transparency. And can I just add one thing on to that too? A very clear answer is the where are people newly arriving going to go? They're going to go to our arrival center. At our arrival center we're going to be able to determine with them the best place for them to go after that. Maybe it's in our system or maybe we can help them to identify they have a brother in Chicago and we'll help to get them a ticket after we confirm with the brother that this is a safe plan for them. In the hotel as well we're planning ahead. Sometimes that conversation can take more than a couple of hours. So we're reserving a block of rooms in the hotel so that any person if we're in the process of figuring out where you're going to go can stay in the hotel overnight. So that we avoid putting you in a placement that we couldn't we couldn't complete the conversation with you about where you're actually trying to go. So everybody will be welcomed at the new arrival center as of Friday. Deputy Mayor, we're on Long Island in Nassar or Suffolk counties having placed migrants and if the answer is nowhere why have you not placed any in those counties? So my answer wasn't going to be nowhere. It was that I wasn't going to talk about specific placements of where migrants are. So we're looking at a lot of different counties and and so yeah we're we're looking at a lot of different counties. So honestly we're looking at every single county like this is a New York we bright New York City is in the middle of New York State and so we're looking at every single county in New York State. But you've placed them in Orange and Rockland but you haven't placed them in Nassar on Suffolk. Not yet. I'm just hoping we can get some sort of clarity on the issue with school gyms. There have been cuts set up in school gyms. Are you now going to be removing all those cuts? Are you not going to be housing migrants in school gyms? So we always set up the school gyms as an emergency respite. The word respite means short term and it means for a place to go to get yourself settled while we're looking for a placement. We are always looking at because of the influx that we've seen since Title 42 we had to set up some emergency sites and so we're going to continue to have to do this unless I'm not going to get people at the front door. I think I'm going to continue to get people at the front door. So I'm going to have to continue to make sure that I have emergency sites for short term respite to deal with the influx. I wanted to know I know you mentioned that these situations in the school gyms are for respite short term but what specifically happened today to cause the city to reverse course in the strategy to get everybody out of there and at what time could you say that all the assignments would be out of the gym by the end of the day because I know they're out of one idea already. So I'm not reversing strategy. I am the strategy was to have emergency sites for short term respite which always meant that people would move to another site when that became available. So we are very consistent with our strategy and our planning and we're going to continue to do that so that I can assure that nobody sleeps on the streets of New York City. Oh thank you.