New York City Suspends Shelter Rules Before Migrant Surge

New York City is suspending some rules to the city's guarantee of shelter to anyone who needs it amid difficulties finding housing for thousands of migrants arriving from the southern border with Mexico, the New York Times reports.

The decision came ahead of a Thursday deadline to lift a federal pandemic-era rule, known as Title 42, that sent asylum seekers attempting to cross the border back to Mexico.

Authorities may even shut down large sections of city streets to set up shipping containers or foldable tiny homes as temporary housing for migrants, according to a confidential memo obtained CBS2.

“This is not a decision taken lightly and we will make every effort to get asylum seekers into shelter as quickly as possible as we have done since day one,” City Hall spokesperson Fabian Levy said in a statement Wednesday night.

City officials have said they expect as many as 1,000 people a day to come after the rule is lifted.

The Times reports that, under an executive order, the city is suspending rules that set a nightly deadline for arriving families to be placed in private rooms with bathrooms and kitchens, not in group settings.

Republican governors of border states have been sending buses of asylum seekers to New York and other Democrat-led cities as New York City has moved to help more than 61,000 migrants who have arrived over the last year.