New York state is asking President Joe Biden to open up an airfield in southeast Brooklyn and military facilities across the Northeast to help house an expected increase in migrants, Gov. Kathy Hochul told county officials in a call Friday.
The Democratic governor revealed the request during a private call with county officials from across the state, a recording of which was obtained by Gothamist.
Hochul said she made the request in a letter to Biden on Friday.
“We’re directly asking the president, we’re asking the Department of Defense to identify installations and other properties and have them start managing them,” Hochul said on the call. “I don’t know what the answer to that request will be.”
Hochul said she specifically is requesting a migrant facility at Floyd Bennett Field, a former military airfield on Jamaica Bay now managed by a division of the National Parks Service.
“We are requesting the federal government to allow us to use and have them stand up sites like Floyd Bennett Field, which is a large plot of land, which is in the city limits, and asking for other DOD facilities across the Northeast,” Hochul told the county officials.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams had previously mentioned the field as a possible housing site on Thursday, but the federal entity that manages it said it had not yet heard from City Hall.
A spokesperson for the National Park Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The governor’s call with county leaders came amid rising tensions between New York City and some Republican officials over the expected increase in migrant arrivals.
On Thursday, Adams’ office transported a few dozen single male migrants to a hotel in the Orange County town of Newburgh, over the strenuous objections of County Executive Steve Neuhaus. A state Supreme Court judge granted the Rockland County town of Orangetown a temporary restraining order to block similar arrivals, pending a hearing scheduled for Monday.
Hochul has…
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