New York is set to shutter 12 migrant shelters before the end of the year, marking a significant shift in its response to the city’s ongoing migrant crisis. The closures, announced just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office for a second term, highlight the strain on resources and the political tensions surrounding immigration policies.

As Mike Shedlock of MishTalk.com noted in June, 20% of NYC hotels have become migrant shelters, driving up the cost of hotel rooms elsewhere for paying customers.

Two hotel-based shelters, the Hotel Merit in Manhattan and the Quality Inn JFK in Queens, have already been closed. An additional 10 facilities across the state – including in Albany, Dutchess, Erie, Orange, and Westchester counties – will cease operations by December 31, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office. The sprawling Randall’s Island shelter, which was designed to accommodate up to 3,000 migrants, is slated to close by February 2025, shortly after Trump’s inauguration.

A Crisis of Scale and Cost

Since the spring of 2022, more than 223,000 migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in New York City – roughly half the population of Albany. The city has struggled to house and support this influx, operating 210 city-run shelter sites across the five boroughs. Currently, 58,000 migrants remain in taxpayer-funded shelters, costing the city an estimated $352 per migrant per night. Only $130 of that amount goes directly to housing costs, with the rest allocated to social services, food, and cleaning.

The NYPD has spent $21 million on public safety and security related to the migrants.

The eye-popping figures, listed on the city’s online asylum-seeker funding tracker, shows the city overall spent $4.88 billion combined through fiscal years 2023 and ‘24. Based on the rate of spending, the city likely exceeded more than $112 million since the start of the new fiscal year beginning July 1, or will soon, cracking $5 billion.

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has even projected the cost could double, hitting $10 billion over the three year period ending June 30, 2025. -NY Post

Without policy changes, the crisis is projected to cost New York taxpayers $12 billion over the next three fiscal years, according to city estimates. Mayor Adams praised efforts to consolidate shelter operations and reduce costs, noting a 19-week decline in the migrant census.

“Over the past two years, our teams have accomplished the Herculean task of providing compassionate care for a population twice the size of Albany and saving taxpayers billions of dollars,” Adams said. “The new policies we’re implementing today will build on our successes, save taxpayers millions, and help even more migrants take their next steps towards fulfilling their American Dream.”

Meanwhile, an audit released in August found that NYC overpaid upstate hotels by millions of dollars for sheltering illegal immigrants.

Of the questionable payments, $2.5 million were for unauthorized security, medical, and social services, $1.7 million for vacant rooms, and $230,000 for inflated food bills, according to the audit.

In another example, a Newburgh hotel billed a total of $57,000 for hundreds of unoccupied rooms in early May, for which DocGo got an additional $40,000 in commissions.

Tensions Over Shelter Evictions

Despite efforts to ease the burden on the system, the city’s shelter eviction policies have sparked controversy. Families issued a second 60-day eviction notice are now allowed to stay in their assigned shelters if they need more time, a move Adams touted as cost-saving and beneficial for children’s schooling continuity.

However, adult migrants face stricter rules, with a policy permanently evicting them from city shelters after 30 days. The policy has drawn criticism from activist groups, including Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, which staged a protest at City Hall during a hearing on the issue.

“Immigrants are welcome here – Trumpian policy is not!” protesters chanted, accusing the city of violating its decades-old right-to-shelter rule, originally established to address homelessness. Activists called the eviction policy “cruel and destabilizing” before being removed from the chamber.

A Changing National Landscape

While the flow of migrants into New York has slowed, with fewer arrivals and a reported 101,790 encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in September—the lowest since February 2021—concerns persist about potential surges before Trump’s border policies take effect. A caravan of 1,500 migrants in southern Mexico, near the Guatemala border, is reportedly attempting to cross before Trump’s inauguration.

Trump has pledged to implement strict immigration measures, including sealing the southern border, carrying out a large-scale deportation operation, and ending Biden administration parole programs and the CBP One app. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been appointed as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, with former ICE Director Tom Homan named “border czar.”

As New York City consolidates its migrant operations, Adams has a tough road ahead. The closures signal a pivot in the city’s approach but also underscore the broader national debate on immigration policy.

In the continuation of well-established trend observed across Western democracies, yet another populist, nationalist, right-wing candidate has posted an election result that far exceeded what polls indicated he was capable of. The latest upset took place in Romania on Sunday, and it has positioned a NATO critic and Ukraine war skeptic to potentially take over the country’s presidency.  

With 99% of ballots tallied, populist Calin Georgescu led all 13 candidates with 23% of votes, edging the Save Romania Union Party’s Elena Lasconi and Prime Minister and Social Democratic Party member Marcel Ciolacu — who had 19.17% and 19.16%, respectively. Another right-winger — the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians’ George Simion — placed fourth with 13.87%. That sets the NATO- and EU-member country up for a second-round vote on Dec. 8 against either Lasconi or Ciolacu; Simion has already thrown his support behind Georgescu.  

“The 35-years-long economic uncertainty imposed on the Romanian people became uncertainty for the political parties today,” said Georgescu, who took the poll-outperformance phenomenon to a whole new level: An October poll showed him with only 0.4% support, and a November survey had him racking up just 5.4%. 

The outcome will be highly unwelcome to the Western establishment: Georgescu pledged to restore Romanian sovereignty and put an end to what he characterizes as subservience to NATO and the EU. He has taken a hard line against the presence of NATO’s missile defense system that’s based in Deveselu, southern Romania, calling it a “shame of diplomacy” that is more confrontational than peace-promoting. 

He has also pushed for Romania to pursue a non-interventionist policy in the Ukraine war, and said US arms-makers were manipulating the conflict. Since Russia’s invasion, Romania has facilitated Ukrainian grain exports and furnished military assistance including the donation of a Patriot missile battery.  

If EU bureaucrats thought Viktor Orbán was a problem for them and their funding for the proxy war in Ukraine, wait until they meet Romania’s future president, Călin Georgescu.

Zelensky’s worshippers hate this man!
pic.twitter.com/KzvGss1RSn

— Gabe (@GabeZZOZZ) November 25, 2024

As in the US election, a large portion of the Romanian electorate may have been fed up with resources dedicated to foreign refugees and foreign wars rather than the country’s own citizens. According to the X account GeoInsider, “In one widely shared clip, Georgescu highlight[ed]…striking disparities: Romania pays a monthly allowance of 3,700 lei to the children of Ukrainian refugees, compared to just 248 lei for Romanian children.” 

“For the unjust, for the humiliated, for those who feel they do not matter and actually matter the most … the vote is a prayer for the nation,” the 62-year-old Georgescu said via Facebook after casting his vote. Georgescu has a doctorate in soil science and previously held various roles in the country’s environmental ministry, and represented Romania as a member of the UN’s Environmental Program. In addition to his broad theme of restoring Romanian sovereignty, he also ran on countering price inflation, addressing Romania’s worst-in-EU poverty rate, supporting farmers and decreasing the country’s reliance on imports. 

Georgescu’s result was all the more surprising given he didn’t run as a member of any political party, and used social media platform TikTok as the principal mechanism of his campaign. Racking up 1.6 million likes, his account showed him going to church, running, practicing judo, and being interviewed by podcasters. TikTok’s centrality to his highly unorthodox campaign prompted some howling by people who didn’t like the outcome: 

What happened today in Romania must be a wake-up call for the entire West that TikTok needs to be banned as soon as possible! I’ve been saying this for over five years: TikTok is a tool of the China-Russia coalition to stage coups in any Western country!

— Alin Vlad (@AlinStVlad) November 24, 2024

…and, as is the case whenever a right-wing nationalist wins these days, people are blaming RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA! 

Panic in Romania today as a pro-russian candidate that no one’s ever heard of, with no visible means of funding wins first-round presidential elections after only registering on October 1st.

Romanians and Romanian media are considering it a Russian attack. https://t.co/9G5XZHxhC8 pic.twitter.com/MfjtioNOIq

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) November 25, 2024

Gg Romania… you have been conquered by Russia without even being in an open war with them… The Russian TikTok trolls have managed to influence the votes of almost 23% of the population…

This is why education matters. This is why being informed from the correct sources… pic.twitter.com/hepO2mZHVr

— Larisa Kralik ⭕️ Artoons-Design (@ArtoonsDesign) November 25, 2024

So what I’m seeing is Russia backed a Hitler in the Romanian elections and he came in first place in the first round.

— A. Bartaway🇺🇦❤️✊✌️ (@Bartaway) November 25, 2024

After this extreme pro-russian comes from nowhere tonight to win the first-round Romanian Presidential election, a literal Nazi that no one has ever heard of, a quote from a friend of mine in Romania, who is as shocked as the rest of the country.

It looks like russians have… pic.twitter.com/LwI1eJqu2f

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) November 24, 2024