Immigration advocates and members of the New York City Council have long pushed Mayor Eric Adams’ administration to ramp up its efforts to help newly arrived migrants apply for asylum and work permits — and it finally has.
The city has filed more than 5,600 asylum applications, or about 75 per day, through its Asylum Application Help Center, which launched in July at the Red Cross headquarters in Midtown, officials said at a Council oversight hearing on Wednesday.
New arrivals become eligible to apply for a permit to legally work in the United States 150 days after filing an asylum application in immigration court. In part because of this, many newcomers have struggled to find steady jobs, restricting their ability to support themselves and move out of the city’s strained shelter system, as many are keen to do.
More than 60,000 migrants are currently staying in city-run shelters.
“Mayor Adams has left no stone unturned to ensure that these new New Yorkers get the legal support necessary to thrive,” said Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manuel Castro.
Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who chairs the immigration committee and has long criticized the administration for failing to help new migrants apply for asylum and work permits in large numbers, applauded the city’s latest efforts.
“For about a year, this plea had gone largely unanswered, with no new city funding dedicated to this issue in [fiscal years 2023 and 2024], and little operational support put in place,” Hanif said.
“I’ve been encouraged that in recent months, the tides have started to turn,” she added.
But the city has been slower to help new arrivals take advantage of the recently expanded Temporary Protected Status program, or TPS, which officials say could benefit 15,000 Venezuelans in the city’s care. TPS allows migrants whose home countries are deemed unsafe to stay and work in the United States temporarily.
The Biden administration expanded TPS to include Venezuelans last…
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