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RANDALL'S ISLAND, New York (WABC) -- New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday announced the city is closing the migrant shelter on Randall's Island early next year.
The city plans to shut down the Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center by the end of February. The reason is that the influx of asylum seekers into the city has dramatically dropped.
"We're not out of the woods yet, but make no mistake, thanks in large part to our smart management strategies and successful advocacy, we have turned the corner on this crisis," said Adams in a statement. "We're not scrambling every day to open new shelters - we're talking about closing them. We're not talking about how much we're spending - we're talking about how much we've saved. And thanks to today's announcement, in a few months, we'll be talking about how much we're investing in restoring Randall's Island's incredible fields and parks for community use."
The city has already begun to decrease capacity at Randall's Island, with the remaining occupants being transferred to other shelters, which will remain open.
"The ability to decompress the Randall's Island humanitarian relief center over the summer and planned decommissioning of this site in the coming months demonstrates the effectiveness of our asylum seeker management strategies," added Chief of Staff Camille Joseph Varlack.
Adams acknowledged the number of asylum seekers in city shelters has decreased for 14 straight weeks and is now at its lowest point in over a year.
The city's Asylum Application Help Center, the first of its kind in the U.S., has helped complete more than 72,000 applications for work authorization, temporary protected status, and asylum.
