A state supreme court judge on June 21 denied a request from New York City and two hotels to dismiss the migrant lawsuit brought against them by Orange County.
The judge also granted a preliminary injunction that bans the city from sending more migrants into the county until a legal resolution is reached.
Orange County filed the lawsuit days after Mayor Eric Adams bused 186 homeless individuals to two hotels in the Town of Newburgh to ease the city’s mounting migrant crisis.
The lawsuit argued that the city could not operate a homeless shelter in Orange County without due process and asked the court to reverse transfers already done and ban such arrangements in the future.
Judge Sandra Sciortino, in denying the city’s dismissal request, asserted the county’s standing and causes in the legal dispute and put the case back on the trial calendar.
Under the New York Social Services Law, the city has a responsibility to care for individuals unable to provide for themselves within its boundary, and so does the county government; any transfers between the two must conform to state regulations, according to Sciortino.
No proof has been provided by the city that those regulations were met.
Social Services Law
Even though Governor Kathy Hochul’s latest executive order suspended certain building and sanitary codes in the face of the migrant crisis, the Social Services Law was untouched, according to the court order.
Plus, the city admitted that migrants at the two Newburgh hotels, while their stays were paid for by the city, were free to leave at any time.
“If they find their community, they are free to do that. They are in our care. They are not in our control … they are not imprisoned at the facility,” a city representative said at a May 16 court hearing.
Once they leave the hotels, temporarily or permanently, they may require fire, police, or medical services and strain county resources.
Based on the above reasons, Sciortino decided the county had enough stakes to pursue the lawsuit.
As to the county’s ask for a preliminary injunction against further transfers, the city argued the request violated the migrants’ right to travel, but Sciortino disagreed.
If migrants came to the county themselves, no evidence suggested that the county government would refuse to admit them or prevent them from accessing public locations, according to the court order.
In other words, the county’s objection lies not in the free movement of these individuals but in the method with which the city transports them.
The city also opposed the injunction on the grounds of discrimination on the basis of national origins, which Sciortino found unsound.
In asking for a stop to further transfers, the county meant the general homeless adult population from the city and did not single out migrants, according to the court order.
The two hotel defendants, Crossroads Hotel and Ramada by Windham Newburgh/West Point, also argued that an injunction would violate their right to contract.
Sciortino found the assertion premature, given that the contracts had not been provided to the court by the hotels and whether they complied with laws in the first place was unknown.
Plus, she wrote, it was too early to tell in this matter whether the county’s interest in protecting the general good of the public overrides the hotels’ right to contract.
In granting the preliminary injunction, Sciortino said the city could still send migrants to the county as long as the transfers were done in compliance with applicable laws.
The court order also asked the city to provide identification information of those staying at Orange County hotels within five days.
Sciortino encouraged both parties to work together in the coming months to find a solution that would address the needs of all people involved, including the migrants.
