NEW YORK (PIX11) — After Mayor Eric Adams announced Friday that hundreds of migrants could be relocated to parts of the Hudson Valley, a Rockland County official said they are not willing to accommodate any asylum seekers.
“We’re not a sanctuary county. The mayor proudly boasted that he was, that he would take everybody. We’re a small town and we’re not equipped to deal with this mass influx,” Orangetown Supervisor Teresa Kenny said on PIX11 Morning News Monday.
Kenny said the mayor’s office called her on Friday to tell her that migrants would be relocating “imminently” before town residents reported hundreds of beds were already stacked up outside a local hotel.
The hotel is located in the Hamlet of Orangeburg, which has a population of around 4,600 people, and is primarily for transient use for no more than 30 days, Kenny said.
Kenny said up to 340 single men could be sent to the area.
“It’s just not fair to anybody, to the residents or migrants that are coming. This is such an inappropriate place for them,” she said.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day declared a state of emergency on Saturday. Day said it will be an ugly battle with the Democratic mayor after Adams announced that 300 people would have the choice to voluntarily go to either Orange Lake in Newburgh in Orange County or Orangeburg in Rockland County.
New York City has provided shelter for more than 60,000 asylum seekers since last spring, with over 37,000 people still in the city’s care. A spokesman for Adams said that the city will be paying the migrants’ bills, even if they go upstate, for at least the next four months.
Watch Kenny’s full interview in the video player.
