Activists protest Biden’s asylum order

Activists marched in solidarity with migrants from Herald Square to the Roosevelt Hotel migrant reception center on Thursday.

“We’re here to say that immigrants are here to build this country,” said Caleb Soto, workers rights director of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network.

Protesters are calling on the Biden administration to reverse a recent executive order announced Tuesday that aims to limit the number of asylum seekers crossing the southern border.

This order will prohibit migrants who cross the border illegally from seeking asylum.

The decree will come into effect when the number of daily illegal crossings reaches 2,500 or more per day.

The last time it was below this figure was in January 2021.

“This message is also for our own community, where we need to stand together and we need to fight back,” said Nadia Marin-Molina, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Marin-Molina’s advocacy group is one of several groups that have spoken out against the executive order.

The group organized Thursday’s protest, which attracted a few hundred people.

“None of these politicians are going to do anything unless they are pushed to,” Marin-Molina said.

Some politicians, like Mayor Eric Adams, support the order.

“Anything that could be done to slow the flow, give us the resources, allow people to work. I completely agree,” Adams said Tuesday during his weekly press conference.

City officials say the influx of migrants has strained the city’s resources.

More than 200,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the city since spring 2022, authorities said. Meanwhile, 65,000 of them remain in city custody.

The city said it spent $1 billion to feed and house arriving migrants.

While the message of an overburdened system is something, some advocates say it is now being used as a political football.

“It’s not possible to say New York is somehow the greatest city in the world and say we have to limit it to certain people,” Soto said.

The order continues two weeks after seven consecutive days of fewer than 1,500 daily encounters.