Officials in New York City suburbs are strongly opposed to Mayor Eric Adams' plans to relocate migrants to hotels in their towns.
Adams announced his plans Friday for New York to pay to house about 300 migrant men in two hotels in Rockland and Orange counties – in an attempt to ease the burden of hosting the city's growing number of illegal migrants, which would include those buses from Texas.
Less than a day later Adams announced the plan, Rockland officials began trying to stop Adams' plans, The New York Times reported.
"It felt like they were trying to do a Friday night drop," Orangetown town supervisor Teresa Kenney said.
Kenny, whose town is in Rockland County, said she learned about the plan hours before Adams announced it.
"I feel like the mayor called me to check a box so he couldn’t be criticized for not talking to us."
Rockland County Executive Ed Day, a Republican, on Saturday issued a state of emergency order stating that municipalities could not transport or house migrants in his country without permission.
"Whatever we need to do to stop this, we will do," Day said Sunday. He also said that the county is prepared to issue up to $2,000 fines per violation each day to any hotel that takes in migrants through the program.
"They’re basically dumping them into a county where we’re not prepared for them," he also said.
Rockland is the first New York county outside of the city to issue an emergency order to tackle the migrant crisis, New York State Association of Counties Executive Director Stephen Acquario said.
"This is a homelessness problem, and it’s largely the fault of the federal government," he also said. "And here we have the lowest unit of government cleaning up the mess of the United States."
Orange County is also considering issuing a state of emergency to block Adams' plans, county executive Steve Neuhaus, a Republican, said.
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