Randall’s Island Tents Are Coming Down but 60,000 Migrants Remain in Shelters

The city is moving to close the 3,000-migrant tent shelter on Randall’s Island by the end of February, officials announced Oct. 9.

Mayor Eric Adams said in a press release that the planned closure showed the city is “turning the corner on this crisis” thanks to his administration’s “smart management strategies and successful advocacy.”

The release noted that the number of migrants in the separate shelter system created for them has declined for 14 straight weeks and that 70% of those who have arrived in the city since the spring of 2022 are not living in shelters.

It did not mention that more than 60,000 migrants are still living in shelters, which is about 6,000 fewer than at the start of the year according to city data. Altogether, a near-record 117,900 people were staying in traditional or migrant shelters as of Sunday.

The city has already moved to decrease capacity at the Randall’s Island shelter, dismantling one tent that had 750 beds, according to the release.

The announcement comes on the heels of a devastating few weeks for the embattled mayor, who was indicted on federal corruption charges last month followed by a parade of resignations of top officials who’d been targeted by FBI raids. Adams has insisted the resignations have nothing to do with the barrage of federal probes, or pressure from Gov. Kathy Hochul to clean house.

Adams had said at one point that the migrant crisis would “destroy New York City,” and his last police commissioner, Ed Caban, claimed, without providing any numbers, that the city was suffering from a “migrant crime wave.”

The closure also comes after the Randall’s Island Park Alliance had in May threatened a lawsuit for alienation of parkland that was followed by months of closed-door discussions between the Alliance and city officials, according to John DeSio, a spokesperson for the group.

“The administration heard our concerns, and we appreciate them working with us on this issue,” said Randall’s Island Park Alliance President Deborah Maher in a statement. “We look forward to working with NYC Parks to restore this important resource, and welcoming back thousands of children from across the city to their newly restored sports fields as soon as possible.”

The announcement of a closure plan comes at a critical moment for Democrats on the national stage, with Vice President Kamala Harris in the closing weeks of a bitter election fight against former President Donald Trump, who’s criticized the Biden administration and Harris relentlessly for their handling of the border.

After Adams suggested last month that he’d been criminally charged with bribery and other crimes in retaliation for his public complaints about the White House’s immigration approach and what it was costing New York City, Trump amplified that unsupported claim. Democratic allies, including Al Sharpton, then publicly told the mayor to stop saying that.

City officials first opened a first tent shelter on Randall’s Island in October of 2022 as the number of migrants arriving in New York City began to spike, but closed it shortly after as the influx of new arrivals stabilized.

In August of 2023, officials announced the opening of a second tent shelter there as the city struggled to handle another surge of migrants to the region.

Even as the number of arrivals slowed down again following a shift in border policy by the Biden administration, the shelter became a flashpoint for violence within the city’s system, with several fatal shootings and stabbings. A number of people set up camp outside the shelter in homeless encampments after getting ejected after the city imposed a strict 30-day limits on shelter stays for many migrant adults.

Adams framed the Randall’s Island closure plan as a sign that the city has turned the tide. “We’re not scrambling every day to open new shelters — we’re talking about closing them,” he said in Wednesday’s press release. “We’re not talking about how much we’re spending — we’re talking about how much we’ve saved.”

Kathryn Kliff, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, which watch guards conditions for people living in city shelters on behalf of the Coalition for the Homeless, said the most recent city data provided to them showed a drop of about 600 people in a week, one of the steepest declines they’d seen since the a surge of migrants began traveling to New York City in 2022. Yet, she said, closing one of the largest migrant facilities could still lead to capacity issues.

“No one knows what February will look like and we certainly have concerns,” she said. “There’s certainly been issues and clients have had very real, dangerous experiences there, but they still have an obligation to shelter everyone if they’re going to close one of their largest sites, we want to know how they plan to do that.”

Gwynne Hogan can be reached at ghogan@thecity.nyc