Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin Monitoring Rockland County Situation and Considering Further Protective Actions
Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin said he is monitoring the serious situation involving a plan uncovered by Rockland County officials that would see New York City bus illegal migrants into that county.
McLaughlin said he is preparing a State of Emergency similar to the one issued by Rockland County Executive Ed Day and has instructed senior county staff to determine other ways to protect Rensselaer County from an unwanted influx of illegals.
Rockland County officials uncovered a plan by New York City Mayor Eric Adams to transport approximately 300 migrants to that county. The migrants would be given vouchers by NYC covering only a portion of housing and food.
“This would amount to human trafficking, and it is clearly wrong. Under this plan, displaced persons here illegally would be brought to areas not equipped or prepared to care for them,” said McLaughlin.
“Rensselaer County does not have the resources to take care of potentially hundreds or thousands of persons illegally bused into our county or the Capital Region as a whole. We have all we can do to take care of residents in need or facing special challenges,” added McLaughlin.
County officials have informed McLaughlin other moves of migrants may be planned in other upstate cities, including Buffalo and Syracuse. McLaughlin said he has been contacting other county officials in the state to discuss the issue and potential courses of action.
“The sad irony here is that sanctuary city New York City is looking to offload the problems and failures of their policies on county’s that have not expressed a willingness or ability to house these migrants. The action by New York City to essentially dump these migrants on other counties is a potential disaster in the making and needs to be stopped,” said McLaughlin.
“We believe we have avenues of recourse to protect Rensselaer County, and we would be prepared to exercise our rights and authority fully to stop this reckless and inhumane action. New York City needs to rethink this ill-advised and dangerous plan immediately,” added McLaughlin.