Adams doesn’t rule out housing migrants on Rikers Island

Mayor Eric Adams said that he would not rule out housing incoming asylum seekers on Rikers Island on Wednesday, May 17, 2023. Photo by Benny Polatseck/Mayoral Photography Office

By Jacob Kaye

Mayor Eric Adams said that he would not take Rikers Island off the table as a potential place to house newly arrived migrants.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Adams said that he would consider every available option when it comes to finding a place to house the tens of thousands of asylum seekers he expects to arrive in New York City in the coming months.

“We're going to look at everything,” the mayor said during an unrelated press conference in Manhattan. “I tell the team every morning at 8 a.m., we are looking at everything, and as we roll them out, we're going to share with you.”

The Daily News reported early Wednesday morning that the city was “seriously considering” sending migrants to be housed in a shuttered jail facility on Rikers Island, the troubled jail complex that has faced scrutiny for decades for its violent conditions and crumbling facilities.

The facility being eyed as a potential site to house the migrants is known as the Otis Bantum Correctional Center. The facility closed last year because of staffing shortages within the Department of Correction, but is currently in the process of being prepped for a reopening – but not to house migrants.

The population on Rikers Island, which the city is legally required to close by 2027, has increased by nearly 2,000 detainees since April 2020, and currently sits around 6,000. City officials expect that number to hit 7,000 before the end of the year. The Otis Bantum Correctional Center was expected to be used to house detainees awaiting trial.

But Adams, who has faced pushback for a number of recent decisions regarding the housing of migrants, says the rising population of asylum seekers is just as pressing.

“We're probably in one of the largest humanitarian crises the city has ever experienced,” the mayor said.

Around 4,200 migrants arrived in the city in the last week. Dating back to last year, around 65,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City, many sent by bus by officials in southern border states.

The city currently has around 150 emergency shelter sites throughout the five boroughs, which are currently occupied by around 41,000 migrants, according to city officials.

In the past several weeks, Adams has announced plans to send migrants to other localities within New York State, rolled back the requirements of the city’s Right to Shelter rules, sent migrants to be housed in city schools and has said he’s eyed Floyd Bennet Field, an airfield in Brooklyn, as a potential site to house a number of migrants.

Advocates and lawmakers continued to push back against Adams’ decisions surrounding the crisis on Wednesday.

“Rikers Island has a long track record of causing nothing but pain, suffering and death to those that have been forced to reside there,” Murad Awawdeh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said in a statement.

“We have joined the countless numbers of advocates and organizations who have called for it to be permanently shuttered, which makes this news even more alarming,” Awadeh added. “Housing asylum seekers – who are pursuing their legal right to apply for asylum – on Rikers is simply immoral. The traumatizing effect of doing so, after people have fled violence and persecution in their home countries, will cause more injury to families who are already struggling.”

City Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who chairs the council’s Committee on Criminal Justice, blasted the mayor for considering bringing migrants to Rikers.

“We’re working to adhere to the legal mandate to close the nightmare that is Rikers,” Rivera said. “The mayor has had a year to utilize city agencies to make a plan, and this is a troubling indication of an inadequate response.”

“The cruelty is the point, and the crisis is failed leadership,” she added.

When asked on Wednesday whether or not he worried about the perception the move would have, Adams suggested that he’d rather have migrants housed on Rikers Island than not be housed at all.

“I'm willing to make the tough decisions and not get bottled down in what the optics are,” Adams said. “Whomever is telling us not to go somewhere, I have one question for them, ‘You tell me where we should go then.’”

“The worst optic we could have is for a family to sleep on our streets,” the mayor added. “That's the optic we can't have.”