This weekend I declared a State of Emergency in Rockland County to prevent the busing of hundreds of undocumented individuals to a hotel in Orangeburg, New York.
I took this unprecedented action to protect these migrants from being used as political pawns yet again and from what could have been a one-way bus ticket to homelessness or worse.
Rockland County, while beautiful, is suburban and does not have the infrastructure to support rapid population growth.
We already have a housing crisis with a severe shortage of safe and affordable units. This has led to severe overcrowding as unscrupulous landlords take advantage of both new legal migrants and the undocumented.
We saw this situation turn tragic in March when five people, including two children ages 4 and 13, died in a fire in a two-family home in Spring Valley that 18 people were living in.
Mayor Adams’ plan to send single-adult male asylum seekers to Rockland is fatally flawed. He claims that New York City will support these individuals for four months with food, clothing, medical services and help securing work permits while they integrate into our community and find housing of their own.
Unfortunately, it takes six months minimum, likely longer, for an asylum seeker to receive a work permit. The mayor is setting these folks up for failure — a failure that will result in their inability to support themselves or find safe housing.
Rockland is not anti-immigrant, but we are struggling with the organic migration of people with direct ties to our community.
We stand opposed to the mayor’s short-sighted plan, which will endanger the lives of our residents both current and future.
Ed Day is the Rockland County Executive.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
