New York’s current migrant shelter time limits do more harm than good in helping migrants find permanent homes. Policies that limit the stay for migrant families to 60 days and individuals to 30 days perpetuate barriers to migrants seeking employment and contribute to physical and emotional displacement. The policies keep newcomers to the U.S. in a constant state of uncertainty and prevent them from settling down into places of permanency. Our city must treat migrants with the dignity they deserve, strengthen migrant services to protect their civil rights and provide sustainable support that will last more than 60 days.
Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, claims that the current time limits on migrant stays promote the stable settlement of migrants, but given all the extra hurdles migrants must go through to qualify for work, 30 to 60 days isn’t enough time to find a job, let alone a permanent home. To be eligible for work in the above-ground economy, New York migrants need a state-issued occupational license from the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL). License requirements include evidence of legal residency in the U.S., such as a Green Card or federal work visa. Formal identification is also required. Forms of this include a driver’s license, passport or birth certificate. These can be difficult for migrant workers to obtain quickly after coming to the U.S., especially given limited access to lawyers and the overburdened migrant service systems that help with these tasks. The NYSDOL also requires migrants to obtain certain industry-specific traits, such as degrees or certificates, which poses another challenge because of educational variation from country to country — foreign credentials neither align perfectly with American degrees nor hold the same prestige in the hiring process.
The language barrier is another obstacle in obtaining a license, as many professional licenses require passing written exams in English. The hiring process may pose similar issues, as interviews and informal interactions can be more difficult for those lacking fluency. Even for those fluent in English, a foreign accent from a non-English speaking country is sadly perceived as a negative trait. It remains a justification for discrimination against migrant workers, either consciously or unconsciously, on the part of employers. It is irrational to expect that migrants can achieve legal resident status, obtain the identification they may be lacking, transfer foreign credentials, fill in educational and linguistic gaps for their profession, apply for jobs, get a job and find a place to stay, all within 30 to 60 days. Placing these unrealistic timelines on incoming migrants is unjust and sets them further behind when so many things are already working against them.
Along with the barriers to migrant employment, the way shelter time limits disrupt the everyday lives of migrant individuals and families shows that they do more harm than good. After the 30 to 60 days, migrants wake up to eviction notices, which some describe as being akin to criminal encounters with police. Karina Obando, a 38-year-old mother from Ecuador temporarily placed at a Manhattan Hotel, told her son in Spanish, “Take advantage. Enjoy the hotel because we have a roof right now. Because they’re going to send us away and we’re going to be sleeping on the train, or on the street.”
Once their time limit is up, families like the Obandos wait in long lines outside of reticketing centers, one of which is outside St. Brigid Elementary School in the East Village, to apply for a spot at a new shelter. The lucky ones may find a new temporary home; the unlucky ones sleep on the streets and hope for a placement the next day. Many migrants are desperate to avoid this situation in the freezing cold temperatures of winter. Barbara Coromoto Monzon Peña, a 22-year-old Venezuelan woman, expressed a common sentiment amongst those waiting in line: “I’m scared of dying, sleeping on the street.”
Aside from all of the physical disruption of being displaced from a shelter, these experiences for migrants like Obando and Peña are emotionally disruptive. They are forgotten and treated as dispensable, sharing the streets with trash cans. I do not say this to disregard the efforts of the city and various migrant organizations, but it seems as if no matter how hard anyone works, the system works against the migrants.
The deeper problem is a political and social structure unequipped to treat migrants with the human dignity they deserve. An example of the structural inability to give migrants needed services is the evacuation of 2,000 migrants from tent shelters in Brooklyn to James Madison High School’s auditorium in a precautionary measure before an incoming storm. Parents and faculty were angered because the situation forced them to cancel classes the next day. Although their anger is justified, the more significant issue that we need to consider is the lack of shelter space and resources to help migrants settle with jobs and homes. Moving the migrants to the high school was an ill-advised decision on the city’s part, but it happened in the first place because there was nowhere else for the migrants to go.
While it is unfortunate that the crisis affected students’ learning, one could consider how a single day of inconvenience, rearranging schedules and losing the comfort of a predictable routine for students, teachers and families at James Madison is a fragment of the daily struggles faced by migrants. The backlash the city received for this decision reflects the emotional distress of being displaced from the spaces that we call home, and it should serve as motivation for our city’s leaders to build structures that prevent this feeling of displacement that migrants constantly experience.
Obando expressed her disillusionment with moving to America by saying, “They told me that this country was different, but for me, it’s been hell.” To change our country into the place of freedom it proclaims to be, we need to reform our political and social systems so that they can better promote the inclusion and equality of our migrant population. Our policymakers must extend shelter time limits, expand resources and reform the current structures that support migrant housing and employment. Our city needs systems that permanently support the dignity of migrants as human beings instead of leaving them in the dust after 30 to 60 days.
Erynn Sweeney, FCRH ’27, is an international political economy major from Cypress, Calif.
