New York City is sending some migrants to a reticketing center in Manhattan. (Representative photo)
Migrants in New York City are being offered free one-way plane tickets to anywhere in the world as the city faces a shortage of resources due to an influx of people from the southern border. According to the New York PostNew York Mayor Eric Adams has set up a new “reticketing center” for the migrants, where they can get a free one-way plane ticket out of the city.
“With no sign of a decompression strategy in the near future, we have established a migrant ticket reissue center,” a spokesperson for Mayor Adams said, according to the newspaper. “Here, the city will redouble efforts to purchase tickets for migrants to help them take the next steps in their journey, and it will help us sort operations at The Roosevelt for new arrivals,” she added.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that the daily cost of housing migrants in the city’s care was about $394 per person – a price that has risen in recent months. Instead of continually paying a daily rate that could rise even further, Mr. Adams now sends migrants to a Manhattan office dedicated solely to booking airline tickets, on the theory that this will be cheaper than sheltering them for months. At the same time, he also warns that those who choose to remain in New York may spend a winter sleeping outside with shelters full.
“If you run out of room, that means you run out of room,” Adams told reporters Tuesday. “Every year my relatives show up for Thanksgiving, and they all want to sleep at my house. There’s no more room. That’s where we are now,” he added.
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Particularly according to PoliticsThe new ‘reticketing’ plan comes as the city deals with the 130,000 migrants who have arrived since last year. It also comes as the mayor imposed a 30-day limit on how long a single adult migrant can stay in a city-run shelter in an effort to free up space.
Some migrants who took up the city’s offer have already booked plane tickets as far as Morocco, the newspaper reports.
Restrictions on shelter stays, combined with issues that include “rebooking” to other places, are necessary to reduce the population under the city’s care and make room for newcomers, City Hall officials said.
