One accusation against the Democratic administration of Mayor Eric Adams is that increasing numbers of migrants, including asylum seekers, are being forced to sleep outdoors in New York City. After crossing the southern border into the United States, these refugees live in tents, on flat cardboard boxes, in subway cars or on the sidewalk.
Some have been doing so for five months. Add to that thousands of American-born workers sleeping on the streets and nearly 150,000 locals and migrants using the city’s homeless shelter system.
An article last week in the New York Times The plight of these workers, many of whom are from South America and West Africa and who in many cases were bussed to New York by the far-right governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has been highlighted. The scale of the crisis is underscored by the Just reports that “about 800 migrants entered the city’s shelter system last week, down from 1,200 migrants the week before the Biden policy took effect and significantly less than the city’s one-week peak of 4,300 in May 2023.”
The Just refers to the executive order issued by President Joe Biden in early June that suspended asylum applications at the U.S.-Mexico border if the number of “unauthorized border crossings” reached 2,500. Biden’s order violates U.S. and international law by effectively eliminating the right to seek asylum. His crackdown has reduced the number of people crossing the southern border to a three-year low.
The shameful and unnecessary deprivation faced by migrants is the direct responsibility of the Democratic Party, which controls federal, state and city governments. Seeking bipartisan support for their agenda of war against Russia and genocide in Gaza, Democratic Party members have adopted the anti-immigrant policies of the increasingly fascist Republican Party.
On Randall’s Island, a largely recreational area in New York’s East River, migrants set up a tent camp every night. They pool their money to buy food, which they then share. With no other options, migrants use fountains to drink, go to public toilets and bathe outdoors.
Influenced by the vile anti-immigrant rhetoric of both parties, passersby sometimes taunt the migrants and accuse them of trespassing into the park. In the morning, the migrants rush to dismantle the tents before park security forces arrive. Instead of offering protection, the city repeatedly tries to tear down the camps.
“We are here waiting for what is coming, because where should we run?” Guillermo Contreras told the local newspaper The city. “We have nowhere else to go.” The young man from Colombia has been living in the camp for three months. Migrants report that they cannot find work or housing.
Recent rains have soaked migrants’ clothes, shoes, belongings, food and tents. “You have to sleep wet and wait for the next morning to dry your clothes,” said Rafael Enrique Fernandez, a migrant from Venezuela. The city.
Not far from the camp on Randall’s Island is an emergency shelter that houses over 3,000 migrants. This shelter, one of the largest in the city, consists of several tents, each the size of a football field.
Fights and petty thefts are common in the overcrowded shelter. Worse still, three migrants have been killed there this year. The shelter has also been the target of police raids, including one earlier this month. After the raid, New York police admitted that they found no weapons or drugs. Residents were forced to stand outside in the sweltering heat while police searched their belongings.
Some migrants have left these and other shelters because they feel safer outdoors, but many others were kicked out after the city limited the length of stay in the shelters to 30 or 60 days.
Unlike most American cities, New York City has a right to shelter law, but the Adams administration has done its best to undermine the law, failing to abolish it altogether. The stay restrictions enacted in May are designed to drive migrants out of shelters and reduce costs for the city.
Migrants who have applied for asylum or temporary protection are granted an extension but must prove that they have applied. Many migrants are lost or stolen, preventing them from applying for asylum. Others are unable to get an appointment to complete their applications and are then deported.
The city administration is openly hostile towards the migrants. When asked at a press conference about the camps in front of migrant shelters, Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said:
That’s not OK. We don’t want to be heavy-handed, but if you’ve had your time, you’ve completed your case management and you need to leave, you really need to move on.
Adams, a former police officer, has made hateful remarks worthy of former President Donald Trump. “Let me tell you something, New Yorkers, I’ve never had a problem in my life that I didn’t see an end to — I don’t see an end to this one,” Adams said at a public meeting last September, referring to immigrants. “This problem is going to destroy New York City.”
Adams has also shamelessly promoted anti-immigrant stereotypes in his weekly press conferences. “How is it that in our city and our country, so many people are excellent swimmers, and yet we need lifeguards?” he asked in May. One wonders why Adams didn’t just call immigrants “wetbacks.”
Malice and cruelty toward immigrants and the homeless have become part of Democratic Party policy nationwide. California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, was recently filmed clearing out homeless camps, thereby enforcing his own executive order.
In New York State, Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul has used April 2022 changes to the state’s mental health guidelines to criminalize the homeless. Police officers are now allowed to hospitalize homeless people they consider mentally ill. Previously, as is still the case in many states, only qualified health care providers or family members were allowed to take such action.
Adams implemented this policy as quickly as possible, boasting that he had a list of nearly a hundred people who could face police action. The city’s mental health care system has been overwhelmed, especially since the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020.
The WSWS noted of Newsom that the California Democrat “spoke on behalf of an upper middle class that sees homelessness as a detriment to its standard of living. For this class, the sight of homeless people is a contradiction to eating at fancy restaurants and taking expensive yoga classes.” The same can be said of Adams.
The mayor of New York City wants to make the city safe and attractive for the thousands of high net worth individuals (people with assets of over one million dollars, excluding real estate) who live in the city. According to Retrieved 2018-08-18. Much of their obscene wealth comes from investments in luxury real estate across the city.
Compare that to the enormous number of people in the city who applied for Section 8 rental vouchers in June—630,000—for just 20,000 spaces, or the tens of thousands who are staying with friends and relatives and are not included in the city’s homeless statistics. Thousands more will not be able to afford the 4 percent increase in rent-controlled housing, and hundreds of thousands live in substandard city housing—housing that is gradually being privatized and raised to market-rate levels, which currently stand at $3,500 a month citywide, and much more in Manhattan. Millions of New Yorkers are just a missing paycheck or a medical bill away from poverty.
Adams’ statements and the treatment of migrant workers and the homeless in general betray more than a whiff of fascism. As WSWS writer Clara Weiss noted on Twitter/X on Sunday, the dehumanization and criminalization of the homeless was a key feature of Nazi policy. She wrote:
Due to the racist, fascist eugenics policy of the National Socialists, homeless people were classified as “career criminals” and “asocials.” The same applied to the mentally and physically ill, including people with drug addictions.
The elimination of homelessness was one of the NSDAP’s election promises. In 1933, the Nazi regime carried out “beggar raids” in which thousands were arrested and homeless shelters were closed. The homeless were forcibly sterilized and then put in prisons or concentration camps.
The aim of the leading Democrats is to openly distance the party from any policy of social reform, to promote political backwardness, xenophobia and racist attitudes, and to cooperate with fascist forces in order to avoid the danger of mass opposition from the working class. In this way, the alliances and support of the pseudo-left with the Democratic Party favor the growth of fascism.
The struggle of the Socialist Equality Party and its presidential and vice-presidential candidates Joe Kishore and Jerry White for a break between the working class and the two parties of the American financial oligarchy is urgent and indispensable for the defense of all basic democratic and social rights.
