Local police officers and sheriff’s deputies kept watch on the grounds of the Crossroads Hotel in the town of Newburgh Wednesday morning, setting up a potential showdown with the expected arrival of a busload of migrants sent there by New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The police are there to attempt to enforce a local state of emergency designed to prevent the hotel from housing the migrants, according to Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus.
In an interview, Neuhaus said he spoke directly with Adams early Wednesday morning and asked him to hold off on sending the expected bus of 60 individuals — which the mayor’s office signaled would soon be on its way as recently as late Tuesday.
Around 9 a.m., Neuhaus told Gothamist he wasn’t sure whether Adams heeded his message.
“I asked him to stop that,” Neuhaus said. “Whether he does that or not, I don’t know. If they do come into the county [Wednesday], we’ll have a problem because they are going against our state of emergency and that is going to create a very difficult situation. ”
Late Tuesday, Adams’ office issued a statement saying it would transport a “small number” of migrants to the Orange County hotel on Wednesday — even though a judge issued a temporary order preventing the mayor from sending migrants to a separate hotel in neighboring Rockland County.
The city plans to pay for shelter, food and services for the people it’s planning to send to other counties, the mayor’s office said.
A spokesperson for Adams did not immediately respond to questions on whether the city still plans to send people to the Newburgh hotel Wednesday.
The mayor’s plan to send migrants, some of whom are asylum-seekers, to New York City’s northern suburbs comes as the state and the city prepare for an increase in new arrivals amid the looming expiration on Thursday of Title 42, a COVID-era order allowing the U.S. to turn away migrants and asylum-seekers at the border.
Nearly 70,000 migrants have arrived in New…
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