Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone issued an emergency order Friday to assist New York City address a shortage of available housing for migrants legally seeking asylum.
Bellone said the order will create an intergovernmental task force to coordinate response from social services, police and his office to work with state agencies and local nonprofit organizations to support asylum seekers.
“We remain supportive of Governor Hochul’s coordinated and humane approach to addressing this crisis and this emergency order serves to protect the local communities from bearing any costs associated with the potential arrival of asylum seekers,” Bellone said in a statement.
The order also "formalizes the county's objection to New York City's current approach of busing asylum seekers to random hotels across the state."
The Republican-led County Legislature announced on Sunday it would consider hiring special counsel to review legal ways of preventing the arrival of migrants and use of private hotels for housing. Civil rights and immigrant groups protested Tuesday ahead of a legislative hearing on the matter, calling any litigation discriminatory against migrants from the southern border.
More than a dozen counties, cities and towns across the state have tried to ban asylum seekers, including the Town of Riverhead in eastern Long Island. The New York Civil Liberties Union has sued Rockland and Orange counties over their measures to block migrants.
Bellone, a Democrat, said Suffolk will work with the Hochul administration to identify potential federal and state sites to temporarily house asylum seekers. Governor Kathy Hochul has directed all state agencies to review availability at their facilities statewide, including the 64 SUNY campuses, in which Stony Brook University could be a location in the county until students return in late August.
Hochul has also asked the Biden administration to direct the National Parks Service and the Department of Defense to immediately open federal lands for temporary housing, including parks and military bases.
According to the order, hotels, motels, or shelters would need the permission of Suffolk County "to engage in a contract with any other municipality to house asylum seekers, and the outside municipality would be responsible" for all costs.
