In March, the Adams administration ended the City's longstanding universal right-to-shelter when, in a temporary settlement with Legal Aid, the City was granted the ability to limit the length of time that migrants are allowed to stay in City shelters. Now, migrants are having a much tougher time remaining in those shelters, according to data obtained by Hell Gate.
The settlement agreement allowed the City to conduct screenings of migrants to ensure that they're attempting to pursue work permits and housing outside of the shelter system, and deny shelter to those whom the City determined not to be making enough of an effort to leave the shelter system.
That screening process has led to a significant number of people being denied shelter: During a two-week period in late May, roughly half of all applications made by migrants to continue their stay in City shelters were denied by screeners, according to numbers provided to Hell Gate by the Legal Aid Society. (City Hall and New York City Emergency Management, or NYCEM, the agency overseeing the screening program, did not respond to requests for more recent data.)
After 30 days in a shelter for an individual, or 60 days as a family, a migrant must make the trek to the East Village to be screened, leading to either another 30- or 60-day extension, or the end of their time in the City's shelter system. These screenings, which are being done at the City's "reticketing center" at the former site of St. Brigid's school in the East Village, include confirming whether migrants are applying for asylum, looking for work, have enough money saved to no longer need shelter, are trying to find housing outside of the shelter system, or have a disability, according to the agreement between the City and Legal Aid.
Between May 15 and May 28, according to the information provided by the Legal Aid Society, 412 people completed a screening, either for an individual or a family placement; 199—about 48 percent—of those people were not given a new placement; and of that number, the majority of applications were denied because screeners determined they were not making sufficient efforts to either pursue asylum, find new housing on their own, or find work. (No one was denied for having too much income.)
According to the Legal Aid Society's Josh Goldfein, some of the people being denied continued shelter by the City should have been approved.
"We're meeting lots of people who appear to have been inappropriately denied, and we have been raising those cases with the City. And they have granted new placements to just about everybody who we raised with them," said Goldfein, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society's Homeless Rights Project, who argued on behalf of Legal Aid in legal proceedings with the City. But he believes some people are falling through the cracks. "We also know that for every person that we meet, there are lots of people who we don't meet, they don't know that we're here."
The City is not tracking what happens to migrants after they're denied an extension in the shelter system.
In May, City Comptroller Brad Lander slammed the City's treatment of migrants facing the 30-day and 60-day evictions in a scathing report, calling its implementation "haphazard." Not included in the report were issues regarding the content of the screenings themselves, which have been the subject of previously unreported controversy between Legal Aid, immigrant advocate groups, the comptroller, and City Hall.
In March, NYCEM brought on the staffing firm Lexitas Legal Talent to help hire screeners. In at least one job interview, a recording of which was provided to Hell Gate, a Lexitas recruiter told the potential screener that in that role, they would be assessing the strength of a migrant's asylum claim, and that they would determine whether an asylum claim had merit as a condition for a new shelter placement. A screener, that recruiter said, would provide an "assessment of the likelihood that somebody's claim will be meritorious, and therefore enables them to get, to continue shelter status." But this is a criteria that was not included as part of the agreement the City and Legal Aid made in settling changes to the right-to-shelter policy. As Legal Aid told Hell Gate, merely having an ongoing asylum case qualifies people to stay in the City's shelters under the revised settlement, regardless of the possible outcome of their cases, which can often drag on for years.
That Lexitas call was the subject of a May 6 letter from Comptroller Brad Lander to Mayor Adams, demanding answers about whether screeners would be assessing the strength of asylum claims as a condition to get continued housing in a City shelter.
"I am deeply concerned about this unprecedented practice, which would be inconsistent with the terms of the stipulation, an improper use of City resources, a dramatic overreach of City authority, and would cause the unwarranted rejection of individuals who need and are eligible for shelter," Lander wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Hell Gate through a Freedom of Information Law request. In the letter, Lander also expressed concerns that by judging the merits of a person's asylum case, the City would be creating a paper trail that could be used against someone in their immigration court case, based on potentially spurious information.
The comptroller's office said that they did not receive a substantive reply back from City Hall about why the staffing agency contracted by NYCEM was telling potential employees they would be discussing the merits of people's asylum claims.
A spokesperson for NYCEM told Hell Gate in a statement that "the recruiter was incorrect in their description of the job. The strength of an asylum case is not relevant to the evaluation for a shelter extension, nor has it ever been. We have communicated with them to correct the issue."
A City Hall spokesperson said in a statement that "designated teams are reviewing information provided by guests nearing the end of their 30- or 60-day notices, indicating why they may need to remain in shelter longer, and assisting them with exit planning. While these changes will require some adaptation, they will help migrants take the next steps in their journeys, reduce the significant strain on our shelter system, and enable us to continue providing essential services to all New Yorkers."
Lauren DesRosiers, a senior staff attorney at Albany Law School's immigration law clinic who has been working with migrants in New York state who have passed through the City's shelter system, wasn't surprised that a contractor would be spreading misinformation about the process or misleading migrants generally, especially when it comes to as complicated a process as asylum.
"To add on any assessment of the underlying claim is just going even further into nonsense land," DesRosiers said. "And that's why it's believable to me that they would be doing this, because it's all already so nonsensical."
Legal Aid's Goldfein said that the group hasn't met with any migrants who reported that screeners asked them about their own asylum case. But with hundreds of migrants now being denied further shelter placement, and only a few of those finding their way to Legal Aid for further assistance, he said it's unknown just how many people are being denied for reasons not covered under the stipulation, or because they didn't have the proper documentation to show they do, in fact, qualify.
"We don't know if they don't end up reapplying because they have another place to go or they have some other option that they consider to be better," Goldfein said. "But that other place might still not be adequate, might not be safe."
DesRosiers sees the screenings as yet another roadblock placed in front of people who have the legal right to claim asylum in the U.S., but find themselves homeless and with limited options.
"What they're doing in New York City is basically forcing people to self-deport in the exact same way I would expect from Immigration and Customs Enforcement," she said. "But in some ways it's crueler, because there's a pretense they're 'caring for migrants.'"
Update (5:38 p.m.): City Hall's response was added to this story when it was finally given more than two days after we initially asked for one, and an hour after this article was published.
