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Let’s have a talk, NYC.

Posted 5/23/23

Here and gone; the Venezuelan asylum seekers who checked into the Knights Inn in Liberty have already been sent onto the next destination in their journey, which as it stands right now is going to …

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Let’s have a talk, NYC.

Posted

Here and gone; the Venezuelan asylum seekers who checked into the Knights Inn in Liberty have already been sent onto the next destination in their journey, which as it stands right now is going to be somewhere in Poughkeepsie.

We can only hope that those accepting the 40 seeking asylum were given a better heads-up than the officials of Sullivan County last week. Although they were not here for too long, there was a great amount of confusion and anxiety that rose to the top of discussion over the weekend. 

How would we feed them? Clothe them? How long were they going to stay? 

All moot points now, but they were legitimate concerns that we had with very little to zero effective communication from NYC’s Mayor Eric Adams or any other city officials. 

The city has been struggling with the influx of asylum seekers and have been scrambling to find temporary housing for them, with our neighbors of Rockland and Orange counties also recently seeing bus loads stopping in at their motels and hotels.

We are all feeling the pressure.

However, Sullivan County is nothing if not resilient, and we certainly would have found the answers to these questions, but this stress was made much more unnecessary by the shockingly minimal communication. The crisis is not over however, as there is no guarantee that more people seeking asylum might be shipped up to meet us at our border.

If this should happen again, officials of Sullivan County, business owners whose responsibility it may be to house these individuals, and the residents of the area deserve to know ahead of time in order to have ample opportunity to prepare and maybe even assist those in need of help the best we can.

How are we supposed to help such a large number of people so unexpectedly when we are already struggling to help those within our community as it is? Please, Mayor Adams, we want to do right by people in need with what we have, but we need to have  more of a conversation rather than just be an afterthought. 

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  • .

    Just wait until the asylum seekers take up residence at the Job Corps.

    Friday, May 26, 2023 Report this