New York City migrant crisis costs expected to exceed $5B in 2-year period — double to $10B by 2025

New York City spent $4.88 billion in the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years combined providing shelter, food and other services to migrants

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New York City is soon projected to have spent more than $5 billion over the last two years on the migrant crisis – an estimate that is expected to double by 2025. 

At an average of $352 per night for at least 36,939 households, the city projects it will spend $4.75 billion providing shelter, food, healthcare and education to the influx of migrants in the 2025 fiscal year, according to the current forecast by the city’s online asylum seeker funding tracker. The city budgeted $3.76 billion in funding for the migrant crisis in the 2024 fiscal year. 

In the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years combined, the city spent $4.88 billion on the migrant crisis. 

Based on the current rate of spending, the New York Post reported that the city has likely spent more than $112 million on the migrant crisis since the start of the new fiscal year, which began on July 1, meaning the cost of the crisis will soon exceed $5 billion if it hasn't already. That’s nearly the amount of the total $5.8 billion budget allocated for the New York City Police Department budget in the 2025 fiscal year. 

The NYPD went from spending $1 million on the migrant crisis in the 2023 fiscal year to $20 million in the 2024 fiscal year, as police have increasingly been dispatched to quell illegal activity at overcrowded city migrant centers. That includes the one at Randall’s Island, where migrants who’ve maxed out their stays have erected encampments nearby. 

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A man was stabbed at one of those encampments earlier this week, and two weeks ago, a shooting killed one woman and injured two other people. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has said that he expects the costs of the migrant crisis to reach $10 billion over a three-year period ending June 30, 2025. 

nyc migrant lines

Migrants await registration outside the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023. The city said the number of migrants arriving has dropped from its peak of 4,000 weekly to about 700 migrants last week.  (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital )

This week, the New York City Department of Homeless Services announced two new contracts totaling $40 million for contractors to service migrants at hotels commandeered as emergency shelters. 

At the crisis’s peak, the city was taking in an average of 4,000 migrants per week. That’s dropped to the more than 700 new migrants processed by the city last week from Aug. 5 to 11. 

Overall, an estimated 212,000 migrants have been processed through the city system so far. An estimated 63,900 migrants remain in the city’s care as of Tuesday. 

"And so, I do believe we're going to see, we are starting to exhale, our fingers are crossed," Adams said at his Tuesday press conference. 

Adams at press conference

New York City Mayor Eric Adams expects the migrant crisis to exceed $10 billion in costs by the end of the 2025 fiscal year.  (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Asked if he believes the worst is over, Adams said, "It depends. I can only say I hope that the worst is behind us. But we're not out of the woods."

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Representatives for City Hall said the Adams administration's response has minimized costs for the migrant crisis by more than $2 billion, the New York Post reported. 

"I want to be clear on that. We're not out of the woods," he said. "We still have to deal with this small number of violent gang members that are in our city. We have to make sure we monitor them and we still have to make sure that we're able to move people out of this shelter type setting." 

Migrants sit on the sidewalk in Manhattan

Migrants were forced to wait on the streets while waiting to register at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023.  (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital )

Adams also cited an incident this week when a migrant allegedly raped a woman at knifepoint near the popular beach boardwalk on Coney Island in Brooklyn. The mayor claimed the suspect was never in the city's care in the shelter system and cited how local law prevents his authorities from coordinating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

"You know I'm not happy about that. And I think he's the poster child of what's wrong with not doing that coordination. It's clear that he does not deserve to be in our city," Adams said. "Those small number of migrants that are in our city, they should be held accountable when they break the law." 

"First, this is not a New York City issue or even a United States of America issue. This is a worldwide issue," Adams’ chief of staff Camille Joseph Varlack also told reporters of the migrant crisis. "We've had the opportunity to speak to other cities who are expecting and experiencing migration, and we expect that to continue between wars and climate change and all the other issues." 

Danielle Wallace is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering politics, crime, police and more. Story tips can be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and on Twitter: @danimwallace. 

Authored by Danielle Wallace via FoxNews August 14th 2024