Migrant crisis costs NYC $600M a year, source says 

New York City is spending at least $596 million a year to help support the thousands of asylum seekers that have been arriving in the city since the spring, the city’s Independent Budget Office (IBO) said on Sunday. 

According to the IBO’s estimates, the city is providing shelter, education, health care, and legal aid to around 17,500 refugees that have arrived in the city. 

“The arrival of an additional 10,000 asylum seekers — assuming the current mix of households remains consistent — would increase costs by around $246 million,” IBO Acting Director George Sweeting said.

“The total cost of providing the identified city services cannot be estimated with certainty as the number of people arriving continues to evolve,” he added. 

The news comes after the city announced the closing of the newly-opened migrant intake center in Randall’s Island, where it intended to house incoming migrants after its $750,000 project at Orchard Beach in the Bronx closed due to flooding concerns. 

City officials have not disclosed how much money was spent on setting up the center on Randall’s Island or how much it will cost to dismantle it. 

Instead, the city will now be relocating migrants to the Watson Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams previously estimated that housing migrants would cost the city around $1 billion. However, on Sunday, he admitted that the cost might be substantially less. 

“As the number of asylum seekers arriving in New York City in recent weeks has fluctuated substantially, we’re reviewing past analyses to determine if there is a more accurate estimate of the total cost over the current fiscal year,” City Hall spokesman Fabian Levy said in a statement.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the Big Apple’s City Hall asked the state for funding, but did not provide an estimate of how much was requested.