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Asylum‑seeker Costs and Help‑center Closure Spark Questions About State Reimbursements
Summary
Council members probed OMB about asylum‑seeker spending, the planned closure of the asylum application help center funded by the state, and slow state reimbursement; OMB and the Comptroller said cumbersome state processes have delayed claims.
Council members pressed the administration over asylum‑seeker response funding, the closure of the state‑funded asylum application help center and delays in state reimbursements.
The hearing featured detailed exchanges about the scale of asylum‑related spending. Jacques Shishaha, director of the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget, told the committee that the city has been caring for more than 38,000 asylum seekers at a monthly cost of approximately $200,000,000 and that total estimated city spending since July 2022 was about $7.7 billion. Comptroller Brad Lander made similar points in his testimony when urging larger reserve deposits.
Council members asked about the asylum application help center, which the New York Times reported would close because of lack of state funding. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Council Member Francisco Moya asked for figures on how much was spent operating the help center. OMB said operating costs were roughly $40 million in FY24 and about $49 million in FY25. OMB also said it had received some advances from the state but that the process to claim reimbursement had been cumbersome: the first $1 billion appropriation initially required the city to submit $3 billion in invoices to secure the state's $1 billion, delaying payments.
When asked how much of the $4.3 billion state commitment had been paid to the city, OMB said that not all of that sum was directed to the city; about $2.6 billion was for city expenses and the state advanced roughly $1.25 billion of that, with more claims in process. OMB officials described previous state procedures as onerous and said the state changed the claims process in later rounds to provide advances, speed that had improved reimbursements.
Council members warned that continuing uncertainty — operational and financial — places critical asylum legal and social services at risk. OMB said it planned to consolidate non‑DHS migrant sites by July 1 and to fold remaining services into DHS operations, but the administration pledged to provide follow‑up details to council offices.
The Comptroller and IBO reiterated that delayed state reimbursements and the unpredictable scale of asylum costs increase city fiscal risk and strengthened their calls for larger reserves or other contingency planning.
