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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. As the Biden administration ends the emergency COVID rules in the United States, most Republicans cheer that it's about time, long overdue, except there's one COVID rule that they want to keep in place. It's known as Title 42, and it has allowed the United States government to block entry to the country for countless thousands of asylum seekers at the southern border on the grounds that they could spread the virus here.

Now, normally, anyone can declare they are seeking asylum and have that claim evaluated from within the US. Republicans want that one COVID policy to become permanent. That won't happen by Thursday. A big new wave of people seeking to apply for asylum is expected immediately, especially from the desperate situations right now, in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti. Countries other than Haiti run by left-wing dictators, whose refugees the Republican Party used to embrace. Remember that? The Biden administration is looking to restrict asylum seekers in other ways, however, which will explain.

Meanwhile, in New York City and vicinity, a conflict has erupted between Democratic mayor Eric Adams and the Republican Rockland County Executive Ed Day over the mayor having secured a hotel for 340 migrant men in the town of Orangeburg, that's about 25 miles north of the city. The population of Rockland County is 340,000. Adding 340 people for a few months in a paid-for hotel would create a state of emergency, according to the county executive. He actually declared one over the weekend.

COVID emergency measures to protect public health are too draconian, even as thousands of people a week in America died from the virus. It seems like no amount of immigration from south of the border is too small for Republicans to see an emergency in that. We'll talk about both situations now as lots of people might try to cross north into the US with no place to stay. A few people might be living just north of New York City in a paid-for hotel. Or maybe they won't. With me first, CBS News immigration reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez. Camilo, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Thank you for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: I see you're in El Paso today. We'll talk about the situation in that particular city as we go. Can you start by explaining how Title 42 has actually been working under the Trump and Biden administrations? How in practice on the ground has it kept asylum seekers out?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Sure. As you mentioned earlier, Brian, title 42 is this public health authority dating back to World War II that was first invoked by the Trump administration at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020, to summarily expelled migrants without processing their asylum claims. Under US asylum law, migrants normally have the legal right to request protection in this country, but Title 42 suspended that legal obligation and allowed officials to expel people to Mexico or to their home countries without processing their claims or letting them present their case in front of an immigration judge. That was done on public health grounds.

CDC said at the time that this policy was needed to contain the spread of the Coronavirus. Despite some changes, the Biden administration, Brian, as you mentioned, kept this policy for over a year and actually defended it in federal court, but last year, the CDC determined that it was no longer needed to contain the spread of COVID, citing the improving pandemic conditions, but a group of Republican leftists sued and blocked the policy's termination.

That's why this policy is still in effect today, but it is set to end on Thursday at midnight because the broader national public health emergency over COVID is expiring. That is one of the legal underpinnings of this policy. As you mentioned, this is expected to lead to a spike in migration along the border because more migrants will need to be processed. All those who ask for asylum, Brian, will now need to be given at the very least an asylum screening.

Brian Lehrer: Before we look forward to what might happen after Thursday, on a human level, and on a policy level, let's just look back for another minute because migration across the border by people seeking asylum has been very high in the last few years even with Title 42 in place, hasn't it?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Correct, yes. We have seen unprecedented levels of migrant apprehensions over the past two years. Obviously, Title 42 has been the main border management policy that the US government has relied upon during this time period. The Biden administration has faced this unprecedented crisis fueled by a mass exodus of people from countries like Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Peru. We're seeing record numbers of migrants from beyond Mexico and the traditional sending countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. For many years, most of the migrants coming to the border were from these Central American countries or Mexico.

That has changed dramatically over the past two years, Brian. We're seeing a mass number of people from beyond these countries come to the border and request asylum. The administration has argued that this is a broader issue that needs to be dealt with a regional approach. That's why they have announced a set of policies that really revolve around cooperation with countries like Mexico, Colombia, Panama, and Guatemala to prevent migrants from coming to the US in the first place and to allow them to apply to come here legally, outside of the US Mexico border to deter people from crossing the border illegally and instead to wait for a chance to request entry into the US from their home country, or from a third country like Mexico.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have a sense that's easy enough to communicate as to why this crush of asylum seekers from so many countries? You just gave a pretty long list. It's not like one country had a coup, and suddenly a lot of people were being politically persecuted. It's all those countries you mentioned, suddenly sending waves of people seeking political asylum to the United States. Does something bind all those together, or is it a coincidence of a number of simultaneous emergencies in different nations?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: I think you can say, Brian, that this is a perfect storm. We obviously now have the largest refugee crisis in this hemisphere, because of the situation in Venezuela. More than seven million people have fled Venezuela in recent years due to the country's economic collapse, and the authoritarian policies of the government there. We also have a mass exodus from countries like Cuba, and Nicaragua, which as you mentioned, also have repressive regimes. We also have a lot of people from Haiti, either taking to the sea or traveling to Central America to cross the US-Mexico border, because of the dire conditions on the poorest country in this hemisphere.

In countries like Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru, their economies have not recovered as fully from the COVID-19 pandemic as the US economy. In addition to these push factors that are pushing record numbers of migrants to come here, we also have some pull factors that are attracting them, such as the strength or the relatively strong US economy, and the tight labor market here, we need workers and many of these migrants are coming here to fill critical jobs. There's also the perception, Brian, that the Biden administration, at least compared to the Trump Administration, has been more welcoming and lenient to migrants and asylum seekers, and human smugglers obviously, exploit that perception.

Brian Lehrer: Any idea how many people have been expelled under Title 42 since Trump invoked it and under Biden too?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Yes. Since March of 2020, US border officials have used Title 42 to expel migrants over 2.7 million times. That is an unprecedented number. Again, it's something that the US would not have been able to use, or do rather on the regular immigration law, because on the regular immigration law, there's a process for people to present their case in front of a judge and to try to fight their deportation by asking for asylum. That obviously, is not the case for Title 42. People are summarily expelled on the grounds that their entry could contribute to the spread of COVID-19.

Brian Lehrer: In a minute, we'll play a clip of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas in Brownsville, Texas the other day describing what the new Biden policy is. On a human level, based on that really eye-popping number that you just gave, well over two million people expelled in the last three years after coming to the border from various faraway countries, as you say not Mexico, places further away. What happens to a person or a family when they've traveled from far away? Maybe they've taken a boat from Haiti or they've walked all the way from Colombia and are rejected at the border. Has there been a pattern? What happens to those folks?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Well, many of these migrants are expelled to some of the most dangerous cities in this hemisphere. The cities in northern Mexico like Ciudad Juárez, Matamoros, Tijuana, and Reynosa are some of the most dangerous cities, not only in Mexico but in Latin America as a whole. We know that groups like human rights first have documented thousands of reports of attacks, assaults, and kidnappings of migrants who are expelled by the US because we know that criminal elements in Mexico and cartels who control significant portions of territory in their country, prey on migrants and know that many of them have family members in the US who can potentially pay ransoms, for example, if they are kidnapped.

That is something that even the Biden administration has acknowledged that some of these migrants face victimization in Mexico but their argument is that there have to be consequences for people who do what the "wrong way" for people who cross into the US illegally in between the ports of entry. They're saying that they're giving these migrants an option to enter the country legally through programs like a phone app that allows asylum seekers in Mexico to request an appointment to enter out of port of entry, an official border crossing, as well as a program that allows people from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Haiti to enter the US legally to fly here if they have financial sponsors here in the US.

That is the Biden administration's argument but obviously, advocates would say that this in many ways is placing migrants in harm's way.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take your thoughts and questions about Title 42 expiring on Thursday, the state of asylum migration to the US for the asylum seekers and for the communities they're arriving in Texas and New York City and Rockland County and anywhere else, 212-433-WNYC. Anyone from the countries most in question here, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, Columbia, 212-433-WNYC.

Anyone seeing any effects for good or ill from the large number arriving in New York in this vicinity in general in the last year, Mayor Adams says 61,000 people. Anyone else with any connection to the issue personally or anyone else with a comment or a question related at all? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 for CBS News in immigration reporter Camillo Montoya-Galvez.

Later we'll talk to an Albany Times Union reporter who covers the Hudson Valley and gets specifically into the conflict between Mayor Adams and the Rockland County executive over locating a few hundred migrants there. Camillo, you reported yesterday on CBS News on a new federal enforcement effort beginning in El Paso, and the big impact that so many migrants in a short period of time are having on that city in particular. How would you begin to describe that impact?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Well, for context, Brian, in recent days due to a sharp increase in migration in this region in western Texas, El Paso has seen thousands of migrants sleep on its streets. Many migrants have been forced to sleep there because shelters here are overwhelmed, or because some facilities actually reject migrants who were not processed by border officials.

We have seen this new phenomenon of migrants trying to evade capture, evade detection by border patrol, Brian, because they fear they will be expelled under Title 42 back to Mexico. Many of them are trying to evade capture and because of that, they're not eligible to be placed in some of these shelters. That's why we're seeing this, what really is a humanitarian crisis in cities like El Paso, Brownsville, and Laredo, which are struggling to house large numbers of migrants. These local communities are asking the federal government to do more to help them.

Right now, the Department of Homeland Security through a female program is reimbursing some of the NGOs and local communities that are housing migrants but many officials here believe that the federal government should actually be the one doing the housing to set up tents here to help people help these migrants, to help them feed them, to help shelter them, and obviously to also make sure that they're able to get transportation to the respective destinations in the US.

Obviously, that includes major destinations like New York City, because something that most people overlook, Brian, is that most of the migrants who cross in the section of the US-Mexico border don't want to stay here. They want to go to large metro areas like New York City, Chicago, LA, Philly, where there are more significant immigrant populations and where there's ample work for them as well.

Brian Lehrer: How would you describe the politics of migration in El Paso in terms of people welcoming them or saying, "No, go home, stay away. It's too much for us"? I'm asking to compare for the majority of our listeners who are in the New York metro area because I see El Paso has got about an 80% Hispanic population and has a Democratic mayor. It's the opposite of Rockland County up here, which has about an 80% white non-Hispanic population and has a Republican county executive. Who tends to support what kinds of restrictions or not on entry in El Paso?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Well, that's a critical question, Brian, because this is a democratic stronghold. This is one of the bluest areas in what is a Republican-controlled Texas but in the past few years, the city has again, struggled at several points in time to deal with large spikes in migration. The city has a history of welcoming asylum seekers and migrants and many of the officials here support helping these folks who are arriving from countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela but they also have expressed concern that they are in many ways shouldering a lot of the operational and financial burdening of trying to help and accommodate these migrants and these new arrivals.

Again, their main request right now for the Biden administration is for the federal government to have a more active presence here to help decompress this area, to help alleviate the overcrowding, and obviously to make sure that migrants are not sleeping on the street. That is not just bad for the migrants, it's bad for the city's tourism, it's bad for public safety. It's a bad situation for everyone, and the city wants to make sure that the federal government takes more action.

We saw that border patrol, as you mentioned, announced a new operation today to arrest those sleeping on the street who had not been processed by border officials. That is ongoing. Again, the local officials here and many of the residents here feel that the federal government should really have a more active presence here and play a larger role in this crisis.

Brian Lehrer: Now comes the question--

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: That is similar to what's happening in New York.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: It's similar to what's happening in New York, with Mayor Adams and other local officials calling for more federal support despite the fact that they publicly support asylum seekers.

Brian Lehrer: Absolutely. Now we get to the question of, what happens after Thursday when Title 42 expires. The Biden administration this year did roll out what you describe in your reporting as its first comprehensive border strategy which is to expel more people who arrive unannounced from four of those specific countries; Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Here is Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, describing some of that in this 30-second clip from a press briefing that he did on Friday in Brownsville, Texas.

Mayorkas: We are building lawful pathways that will provide a safe and orderly way for individuals who qualify for relief under United States law to reach the United States safely. We are building on the success of our parole processes that we announced on January 5th for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. We saw a 95% drop in the number of encounters of those individuals at our southern border because we built lawful pathways for them to access. That is the model that we are building upon.

Brian Lehrer: It all sounds nice and rational when Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas puts it like that. What's it like in practice so far?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Sure. The administration is really betting on this strategy to reduce the number of people coming. It basically has two main components. It is based on an idea that if migrants have expanded opportunities to enter the country legally, they'll wait for those opportunities instead of trying to cross the border illegally. It's also based on the notion that if you impose consequences on people who cross the border illegally and who do not use these legal programs, then that will also deter migration. The administration is going to continue sending immigrants from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to Mexico if they enter the US-Mexico border illegally. Mexico has already agreed to accept these non-Mexican immigrants. The US will also continue the sponsorship program for immigrants of those four countries to enter the country legally if they have a US sponsor.

They're also going to expand the number of appointments available through a phone app known as CBP One that immigrants in Mexico can actually use to enter the US at points of entry. Right now that is benefiting about 20,000 immigrants each month. The other part of this is that the administration is setting up processing centers in Latin America starting in Columbia and Guatemala, to vet immigrants for eligibility to be resettled in those countries.

The US or even Canada and Spain, which have agreed to take some of these immigrants. That is really the strategy that the administration is trying to push right now. I should also note that the administration is planning to roll out a new regulation this week. Brian, that will disqualify immigrants from asylum if they did not first seek asylum in a third country like Mexico. This is very similar Brian, to something that the Trump administration tried to implement, but that was blocked in federal court.

The administration has argued that it is necessary to deter people once Title 42 is lifted. Obviously, that has garnered a lot of criticism from some progressive Democrats, from advocates, and from even some former Biden administration officials who say the policy relies on this Trump-like strategy and ignores US asylum law.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Biden is getting pressure from the right to restrict immigration period. He's getting pressure from immigration advocates who see his policies as not different enough from Trump's. Before we bring on a few callers with stories and comments and questions. Under this new program that we just played, the clip of Secretary Mayorkas explaining Biden is allowing 30,000 people, I think you just gave that number too.

30,000 people per month from those four countries. Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, and Haiti. 30,000 people per month to come into the US if they apply from outside and have a sponsor. That's 30,000 a month compared to an expected 10,000 or more per day beginning Thursday, according to your reporting. Why that number, 30,000 a month? Where did they come up with that?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: That is the cap that the US has had since January when it first unveiled this policy. I don't know the exact reasons for why that particular numerical cap was set, but I do know that Mexico accepted the same number of immigrants 30,000 of them returns from the US under Title 42. It is likely that Mexico will continue to accept up to 30,000 immigrants deported by the US after Title 42 is lifted. It is part of this broader agreement with Mexico.

Mexico obviously wants to make sure that the US is also upholding its ends of the bargain, which is taking in some of these immigrants. The countries feel like if they try to manage these immigration flows and accept some of these immigrants through different channels, that will reduce the overall pressures that the different government agencies are facing right now. That's really the number that we have, 30,000 arrivals per month from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela.

Brian Lehrer: Larry in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with CBS News Immigration Reporter, Camilo Montoya-Galvez in El Paso, Texas. Hi, Larry.

Larry: Hey. Hi. I've been listening to Mr. Galvez, who's great. A couple of things. One, I work serving the huge influence in New York. I don't want to go into too much detail, but food banks stuff like that through Catholic charities. I despair because I don't think Hakeem Jeffries, Kevin McCarthy, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, anybody wants to solve this problem. They are all making political capital out of it. Back in the '50s, we had the Bracero Program.

We knew these were necessary people to our economy. Let's make this work, make them legal so they cannot be exploited. They were, but at least they have some protection as working people. I will also say and Mr. Galvez hasn't touched on this, but it's an important point that immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers all have very different statuses under the law. They're not the same thing and we're lumping them together.

I guess we have to do that. Then just you have two hours. They're not all the same thing. That's my comment, but I have no faith in my own political party, the Democratic party, let alone the Republican party that anybody wants to solve this issue anymore. That's what I have to say.

Brian Lehrer: Larry, thank you for your call troubling as it is. To one of the points that he raised, asylum. If we pick apart these different status categories a little bit because asylum is the one we're mainly talking about now with the recent waves. Asylum as I understand it is for people who think their government is politically targeting them for imprisonment or physical harm based on their politics or other status or can you qualify for asylum on other grounds too?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: The legal threshold to secure asylum is very high under US and international law. You have to prove Brian and Larry, that you were persecuted or that you have a well-founded fear of persecution in your home country because of your race, religion, nationality, your politics, or your membership in a social group. This is often very high legal standard for immigrants to qualify, especially those who are fleeing desperate circumstances like poverty and extreme hunger.

Those are not grounds for asylum, neither is trying to reunite with your family members here in the US. Obviously, many of the immigrants coming here are fleeing these conditions that don't qualify them for asylum. I really want to touch on the initial point that Larry made because he noted that rightly so that Congress, Brian has not updated the US immigration system in decades. The last expansion of legal immigration was in 1990.

The last legal [unintelligible 00:27:01] program for undocumented workers and immigrants here in the US was in 1986 under President Reagan. There have been no significant updates to US immigration law since then. That's because we have this intensifying partisan gridlock in Congress where Democrats or Republicans have really been unable or unwilling to forge or compromise on some of the right more consensus-driven segments of this debate.

That really has been detrimental to policymaking, because different administrations have had to take unilateral actions that are in many ways band-aid measures and they are vulnerable to be struck down in court or to be undone by the new administration when the parties change power. I agree with Larry wholeheartedly this is something that we should underscore, that ultimately Congress is the one that needs to update these laws to reflect the reality of the present day, not 1990.

Brian Lehrer: Except I would imagine that a lot of Democrats would push back on Larry's conclusion that neither party wants to solve this and say, "Look, the Democratic party has been trying to solve this for decades with comprehensive immigration reform, as they call it including a path to citizenship for the large majority of the law-abiding immigrants who are here undocumented for a long time."

There have been some Republicans in that effort too, John McCain, George W. Bush, Marco Rubio to some degree, but not enough Republicans want to do anything other than just limit immigration as much as possible. The two parties are not really equally solution averse. You're a reporter on the ground. I don't expect you to draw a political conclusion like a commentator, but as a matter of fact, isn't that somewhat accurate?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: What I can say, Brian, is that undoubtedly the Republican party since the ascension of President Trump to the White House has moved more to the right on the issue of immigration, particularly on border issues. Right now, most Republicans in Congress do not support legalizing immigrants who are here without legal permission or even giving them permanent status unless there are dramatic changes to US asylum law.

What I mean by that is, restricting asylum eligibility significantly and in many ways overriding the asylum laws that we have in place that were designed to conform with international treaties that were put in place to prevent countries from sending people to places where they could be persecuted, just like the US did during World War II when they rejected some Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany.

That is something that is true that the Republican Party has increasingly supported hardline measures at the border. That has made it more difficult rather for legislators in Congress to try to forge a compromise. It is also true that on the other side, Democrats right now prioritize the legalization of people like trimmers, farmworkers, and others who are here without permanent status. Many of them obviously do not want to see these severe changes to asylum law.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take one more call for you on federal policy. Interesting question, I think from the caller who's waiting in the wings. Then, listeners, we're going to shift guests and talk about the local expression of this in the recent conflict between Mayor Eric Adams and Rockland County Executive Ed Day who's actually declaring a state of emergency in Rockland County over the prospect of 340 migrants being housed temporarily in a hotel there. First, Ziva in Forest Hills, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ziva.

Ziva: Hi, Brian. I love your show. I listen to it every day for the past so many years that I'm here in this country.

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] Thank you.

Ziva: I love it so much. I would like to make a comment and a question. Regardless to what administration we have, Republican or Democrat, I want to know why the United States government is not helping the South American countries, the communities there, the government there in keeping the people in their towns, in their villages, in their cities. I don't understand United States spend billions of dollars on countries that, I am sorry, they don't deserve our help.

Try to bring democracies to countries that did not help like Iraq after 20 years that we were there, and after all the destruction that happened there. Now we realize that it was a big mistake, to try to bring democracy to Iraq. Many Iraqis didn't even appreciate our billions of dollars that were poured there.

Brian Lehrer: Why not help these countries more? It's a great and very relevant question, Ziva, and forgive me, but for time, I'm going to get a response from Camilo. Camilo, this also goes to the reelection politics of 2024. Because it was Vice President Harris, who got tasked with a very difficult job of trying to work with ascending countries south of the border, to improve conditions there to reduce the flow of migrants to here. I'm already seeing criticism from conservative media outlets of Kamala Harris like "Oh, yes, she had that job. How well did she do with that job with all these migrants still coming before they head into 2024?" What has she been doing if you've reported on that aspect of it? Has it been successful in any way that they can claim?

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Yes. Well, the specific task that Vice President Harris was given, Brian, was to work with what Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador to improve the conditions there and to reduce the factors that prompt people from those countries to come to the US-Mexico border to address what the administration calls the root causes of migration. This was an initiative that was announced very early on in the administration rather, and that was met with a lot of fanfare in the beginning.

Vice President Harris has announced several initiatives to secure a lot of money from private corporations to invest in these countries. The administration believes that that strategy is more beneficial and effective than dealing with the actual governments in those countries, which have struggled with obviously, corruption and other issues. That is what the administration is doing. They're securing private funding for these countries.

The problem with this strategy, Brian-- Well, there are two problems that I see. One is that this is a long-term policy strategy. The conditions in these countries are not going to be significantly mitigated anytime soon. To address the deeply entrenched poverty, violence, and corruption in many of these countries, it's something that will take time and a lot of resources, as well as the willingness of local officials there to partake in this effort.

The second problem is that the Vice President was only tasked with addressing the root causes, Brian, of migration from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, but as we have been discussing, the number of migrants who are coming from other countries beyond this region is reaching record levels. That right now is not part of the Vice President's portfolio to alleviate conditions, for example, in countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Colombia, Peru.

Then again, we don't have good diplomatic relations with countries like Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. This is a very difficult task without any quick solutions, but the administration believes that in the long term, it will try to help some of these countries and that it will eventually reduce the level of migration from these countries, but it's a long-term strategy, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News immigration reporter. Thanks so much for coming on today. We really really appreciate all the information you gave us.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Thank you, Brian.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez: Now in a minute, we'll localize the story and explain the conflict now between Mayor Adams and the Rockland County Executive over hotel rooms that the mayor has found for a few 100 migrant men that has caused the county to declare a state of emergency. Is that a hysterical response? We'll discuss that question and those details next.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we've been saying, Mayor Adams has secured a hotel in Orangeburg about 25 miles north of the city for temporary housing for 340 migrant men. Rockland County Executive Republican Ed Day has declared a state of emergency over the prospect. We'll play a clip of him in a minute. He said any buses would be met by police. Is that an appropriate response, a hysterical response, a racist and xenophobic response? With us now on this part of the asylum seekers' story is Lana Bellamy, Hudson Valley reporter and editor for the Albany Times Union. Lana, thanks so much for a few minutes this morning. Welcome to WNYC.

Lana Bellamy: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: What's the hotel in Orangeburg first of all, that the mayor's people found for these migrant men, and why there if you know?

Lana Bellamy: That's actually a great question, the why there. I'm not exactly sure. The hotel that Mayor Adams wants to send migrants to is called the Armoni Inn & Suites. Like you said, it's in Orangeburg, which is a hamlet of Orangetown in Rockland County.

Brian Lehrer: Why is this specifically for 340 migrant men, just men, if you know?

Lana Bellamy: I'm actually not quite sure of that either. I have a lot of reporting to still do on this. Full disclaimer on that. I do think it's worth noting, too, that it's not just Rockland County that Mayor Adams is planning to send migrants to. There's also a hotel in Orange Lake, which is a hamlet of the town of Newburgh in Orange County, as well. Both county executives have reacted similarly with states of emergency declarations.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to say Orangeburg by itself seems like a weirdly random place for 340 migrants to stay. If Mayor Adams wasn't also placing migrants in hotels elsewhere in the suburbs like you have all of Westchester County before you even get to Rockland. They are also locating people in places in Westchester and I'm guessing on Long Island, but I haven't seen that reported.

Lana Bellamy: I haven't either. I do think that that's going to be part of the next leg of this reporting because Mayor Adams's plan when he announced it on Friday to send migrants to Orange and Rockland counties, it did say that this was the launch of this relocation program and that there was a potential for it to expand. I think the county executives have also wondered what's next. Will there be more people coming to the area? I think it's also interesting that 340 are planned to go to Rockland County, which is more densely populated than Orange County and only about 60 are supposed to go to Newburgh in Orange County.

Brian Lehrer: Let me play a clip of the Rockland County Executive Republican, Ed Day outlining some of his objections the other day. This is about 30 seconds. Listeners, the audio quality on this is not great, but I think you will be able to basically hear him and then we'll talk about it.

Ed Day: Mayor Adams can criticize Congress for a failure to establish a national decompression strategy, but it is hypocritical and frankly, it is maddening, to just then turn around and do the exact same thing to a county that isn't even a sanctuary County. We are not equipped to humanely assist these individuals, which eventually we're going to have to do. We do not have the infrastructure to do so and our social service commission has spoke to that many times in the past. The mayor's plan is the same as tossing people out into the middle of the ocean, who can't swim, and saying, "Go to shore." It can't work. It is not a viable option.

Brian Lehrer: Rockland County Executive, Ed Day. Actually, I think the audio quality on that was good enough for everybody to understand it. Orangeburg's a small place, only about 4,000 permanent residents from the stats I've seen. Town officials say as we heard in that clip, 340 migrant men it's just too much proportionately for there. They ask, "Where are these guys going to work?" Or as the county executive puts it, it'll be like they're dropped in the middle of the ocean with no place to swim. What is Mayor Adam's vision of what the man will do living in Orangeburg, if he's even said?

Lana Bellamy: Well, what the program has said so far is that the city is going to provide the migrants with assistance. That could be asylum applications, work permits. I think it's interesting because it sounds like there will be staff on hand to also, he said, "To help them with their transition into living in a new city." That sounds like integration to me, which is how I characterized it in the story.

Brian Lehrer: In other words, not plopping them into the middle of the ocean.

Lana Bellamy: Right. Even though the hotel stay is supposed to be temporary I think what the county executives are wondering is, does that mean that the participants are going to need housing in those localities eventually, once they leave the hotels? On that note, talking about infrastructure, housing is very difficult to come by, especially housing that's affordable to your average person, right now in the Hudson Valley, but especially Rockland and Orange and the counties that are closer to New York City, because of a lot of people from New York City that moved up here during the pandemic.

Brian Lehrer: Rockland County, are you talking about this at your dinner table, in Nyack, in Orangeburg, in Spring Valley, and Suffern all over Rockland County? 212-433-WNYC. Anybody in Orangeburg listening right now who wants to talk about this prospect, or anyone else relevant to the story? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, with Lana Bellamy from the Albany Times Union. She's the Hudson Valley correspondent and editor. Let's take a call right now from Rockland County. This is Gil. I'm not sure where in the county, but Gillen Rockin. Hi there.

Gil: Yes. Hi. I live in Tappan. I have noticed all throughout the county that there are signs posted for jobs. Some local business owners are telling me that they don't have sufficient labor. They're having to work themselves to keep their businesses open, so I don't understand the resistance or why there would be a pushback to try to get more viable labor more willing to work in these places like ShopRite. There is always post--

Brian Lehrer: Help wanted signs. Your line is breaking up so I'm going to go. As a Hudson Valley reporter, Lana, can you confirm that? Is there a labor shortage in the Rockland County area that more migrants willing to work at relatively unskilled jobs might help to solve?

Lana Bellamy: Oh, I definitely think that there are plenty of jobs open for people who are willing and want to work in them. To what I was talking about earlier, I think if they need to work there, then the next question is, where will they live? Where will they go to school? In March, Ed Day had a news conference well before this plan from Mayor Adams was announced, and he was calling for federal assistance because they were already pretty stressed with the migrant crisis.

What he said was that their pantries were running out of food, that the school systems were overloaded with new enrollees, and that there was a 35% increase in the number of children that have been placed into the foster care system amid the migrant crisis. Yes, I do think that there are plenty of jobs available and that it would be very helpful to be able to have more workers in the area. As far as where they can fit in, in other parts of the community as far as where they can go to school and where they can live, that might be more of the concerns that the county executive was talking about.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a caller from Orangeburg. Gina in Orangeburg you're on WNYC. Hi, Gina. Thanks for calling in.

Gina: Good morning. I've been following this closely. I think that one of the main reasons that this Armoni hotel was chosen in Orangeburg, New York, is because since it's switched hands from being a Holiday Inn, it has been mostly vacant. I go by there all the time, and you just hardly see any cars in the parking lot. I'm guessing that the city just heard about it as a potential place to move a lot of people.

We do have a lot of argument going on here in the county about this issue. People are talking about it around their dinner tables. I feel like it pretty much divides on-- I think that the Republicans aren't really using this to tie into their larger national dialogue about it. The rest of us are trying to just do what we can in this terrible situation, which does affect the whole nation.

Brian Lehrer: Gina, thank you for that call. We appreciate it. County Executive, Day, Lana, declared a state of emergency over the weekend over the prospect of the 340 migrants coming to Orangeburg seems hysterical, I would at least suggest and raises the question of whether he's xenophobic, or pandering to xenophobia in a 78%, white non-Hispanic County. How does he justify a state of emergency that in particular?

Lana Bellamy: Well, I think that's why he's been repeatedly referring to what the infrastructure locally can handle and resources as far as pantries and anything that could help with housing placement. I think that is also what the Orange County Executive, Stefan Neuhaus is saying as well. That the state of emergency is justified because he's just not sure if the community can absorb people, but also the prospect of it continuing beyond just this initial 400 or so migrants that are coming into the area in general.

Brian Lehrer: Ed Day maybe you've seen it has an op-ed in the Post today explaining why he did that. The first reason it gives, I'll just read from this, "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." I don't know how many people are going to believe that he's doing it to protect the migrants keeping the migrants out of some temporary housing that they might get apparently in a place where they could find jobs.

Executive Day also said if buses with migrants come, cops are deployed. Do you know what exactly the police would do with men not breaking the law arriving at hotel rooms that have been paid for by the city of New York?

Lana Bellamy: Honestly, I'm not really sure what they could do if no laws are being broken. What may be the case is the county executive would say, "I've issued this state of emergency, them coming here violates that," which he's already said there will be fines issued $2,000 per immigrant per day of anyone who violates the emergency order by housing the migrants in hotels, migrants that are participating in this program but it's unclear--

Brian Lehrer: Who would they fine? The hotel?

Lana Bellamy: Yes. Those who take them in. It's unclear if that would hold up in court though. If anyone was charged, I would be curious to see how that plays out to see if it sticks.

Brian Lehrer: I have one more question. Executive Day in his op-ed in the Post also says one of his reasons is we already have a housing crisis in Rockland with a severe shortage of safe and affordable units. Has he declared a state of emergency about that?

Lana Bellamy: Not to my knowledge. No.

Brian Lehrer: Lana Bellamy covers the Hudson County for the Albany Times Union. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you coming on with us on short notice this morning.

Lana Bellamy: Thank you, Brian.

 

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