NEWBURGH, NY —
Before leaving Mauritania, the West African nation of his birth, Mohamed thought of New York as a place of “open arms,” a haven for immigrants fleeing dire circumstances.
Now that he’s here, seeking political asylum from a government he feared would kill him, he doesn’t feel welcome. The 19-year-old has become a pawn in a growing standoff between New York City and upstate and suburban communities, which are using lawsuits, emergency orders and political pressure to keep out people like him
Mohamed is one of about 400 international migrants the city has put up this month in a small number of hotels in other parts of the state to ease pressure on its homeless shelter system.
Some of the relocated asylum seekers say they now regret leaving the city, citing a lack of job opportunities and resources to pursue their asylum cases, as well as a hostile reception.
“It’s better in New York City,” Mohamed said. “There, nobody cursed you and said ‘go back to your country’.”
Mohamed, who fled political persecution in Mauritania, holds a photo of himself as a child, May 22, 2023, outside the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh, NY
The Associated Press is withholding Mohamed’s full name at his request to protect the safety of his family in Mauritania. In his home country, Mohamed said he had joined a youth group to denounce government corruption and human rights abuses, including allegations of ongoing slavery. Days later, he said a group of men threw him into an unmarked car, took him to a secret room and brutally beat him for two days.
After a journey that took him across the US-Mexico border, he landed in a shelter system in New York City that he found terrifying and overcrowded. In a shelter in Brooklyn, a room with 40 beds, someone stole the few possessions he had left while he slept.
So when outreach workers offered him the chance to relocate earlier this month, promising more space and opportunities to work, Mohamed jumped at the chance. He joined other asylum seekers at two hotels a few miles outside the small Hudson River Valley town of Newburgh, about two hours north of the city.
Republican county officials have accused the city of dumping its problems on its neighbors, while implying that newcomers pose a danger.
Last week, Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus won a temporary restraining order barring the city from sending in additional migrants. More than two dozen other counties in New York state have declared emergencies in an attempt to block the arrival of migrants, even in places where none are expected.
Up to 400 miles (644 kilometers) north of the city, Niagara County officials have warned of an imminent security threat, promising criminal penalties for hotels housing asylum seekers .
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, says he will continue his efforts to disperse some of the more than 40,000 asylum seekers currently in the city’s care.
Meanwhile, some who joined the initial wave of relocations have since returned to the New York City shelter system. Those without money for transportation, like Mohamed, say they are stuck.
“It’s like the desert,” lamented Mohamed, who studied law and taught himself English in Mauritania. “There’s nothing here for us.”
Mohamed from Mauritania points in the direction of his future job opportunity, May 22, 2023, in Newburgh, NY
Some asylum seekers described feeling lured to the US state under false pretenses, saying outreach workers described local economies in need of migrant labor off the books. Instead, they have suffered a stream of harassment.
“There are people driving by pretty constantly in big trucks telling them to go back to their country,” said Amy Belsher, an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union, who described a phenomenon also witnessed by a reporter from AP.
“It’s a completely predictable result of local county executives jumping on the migrant ban bandwagon,” he added. The NYCLU has filed a lawsuit against Orange and Rockland counties for discrimination against migrants.
An Orange County attorney, Richard Golden, said it was “absolutely ridiculous” to accuse the county of promoting xenophobia. The county’s lawsuit against the city, he said, is based on a 2006 state administrative directive that requires municipalities to meet certain requirements before relocating homeless people.
Misinformation among local residents hasn’t helped, including a false allegation that migrants displaced homeless veterans into hotels, a widely circulated story that has been blown to pieces.
Peru’s Jhonny Neira offered a more varied assessment of his time in Newburgh. The 39-year-old asylum seeker described a recent Sunday visit to a church where he felt welcomed by the congregation, even if he couldn’t understand the English sermon.
“I am a respectful and hard-working person,” he said in Spanish. “I think after getting to know me, they would trust me.”
The number of border crossings between the US and Mexico has declined since May 11, when the Biden administration instituted new rules aimed at encouraging migrants to apply for asylum online instead of entering illegally in the country But New York and other migrant destination cities are still dealing with thousands of people who entered the US before the new rules.
The Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh is now home to men from Central and South America, Senegal, Egypt, Mauritania and Russia. They speak French, English and Spanish as they kick a soccer ball around in the hotel parking lot, next to a restaurant and a tangle of freeways. A few meters away, a man who once worked as a barber in Venezuela offers haircuts for $5, while another sweeps.
To obtain asylum in the United States, they will have to show that they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.
Mohamed’s experience builds on a US State Department report, which found Mauritania has overseen an expanded crackdown on political dissidents since 2021 and cites allegations of torture in unofficial detention centers.
If her story passes a credibility check, it would likely constitute a legitimate asylum claim, according to Jaya Ramji-Nogales, a professor of asylum law at Temple University. But getting to that stage will require navigating a strained immigration system.
“It was always an under-resourced system, but now it’s really at breaking point,” Ramji-Nogales said. “There is no political will to set aside the money needed to operate.”
Mohamed said his goal is to build his asylum case, something he has come to believe is not possible in Newburgh. A few days ago, he missed a key immigration appointment after a car that was supposed to take him into town never showed up.
“You can’t stay here just sleeping, eating and then going back to sleep,” he said. “If you don’t move forward with your case, they will send you home. To me, that would be very bad.”
