Orange County officials praised a federal judge’s recent decision that allows the county to continue barring New York City from housing illegal immigrants in county hotels, motels, and other facilities.
“My fundamental role as County Executive is to protect our residents,” Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus said in a July 27 statement. “This includes stopping New York City from establishing shelters in Orange County.”
Judge Nelson Román on July 19 dismissed a legal challenge to an executive order barring New York City from establishing shelters in Orange County without following applicable laws and rules.
Orange County attorney Richard Golden said in the statement that the dismissal prevents the city from shifting its temporary housing problems to the county.
The executive order was first issued by Mr. Neuhaus in May 2023 to stop the city from housing illegal immigrants at local hotels.
Days later, several people who wished to travel to Orange County hotels through the sheltering program sponsored by New York City, but were stopped by the executive order, filed a civil rights lawsuit against the county with the help of New York Civil Liberties Union lawyers.
Rockland County, which had a similar executive order in place, was a codefendant in the lawsuit.
Following the legal challenge, Orange County revised its executive order to redirect its opposition to the city’s process of establishing shelters, not to the people housed at those shelters.
The order explicitly prohibits hotels, motels, and other facilities in the county from allowing short-term rentals in violation of the state Social Services law and related regulations.
Judge Román agreed with the county’s argument that the revised executive order was fundamentally different from previous ones and thus rendered the legal challenge moot.
However, the plaintiffs are welcome to mount a new challenge based on the revised order, according to the judge’s dismissal order.
The New York Civil Liberties Union didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment before publication time.
In a separate active lawsuit on the same matter at the state court level, the county obtained a temporary ban last year against the city’s sheltering practice, which is still in place today.
Prior to the ban, the city had sent 186 illegal immigrants to two hotels in the Town of Newburgh, according to a court filing by Molly Schaeffer, New York Mayor Eric Adams’s deputy chief of staff.
By July 20, 2023, more than 1,500 people had been bused out of the city to hotels in Westchester, Dutchess, Albany, Erie, and Orange counties, according to the same filing.
Mr. Adams started moving illegal immigrants to upstate hotels in May 2023 as weekly arrivals reached a high of 5,600 and overwhelmed the city’s shelters.
Most of these individuals had crossed the southern border illegally and made their way to the city with the help of the state of Texas and the City of El Paso, Texas, according to a court filing.
New York City identified willing hotel partners upstate through a third-party contractor and bused only those illegal immigrants who had volunteered to accept these accommodations, with the cost of services—including lodging, meals, laundry, health care, and transportation—covered by the city.
While the temporary hotel stays are paid for by New York City, the illegal immigrants are free to leave the hotels at any time, according to a city representative at a May 16 court hearing.
“If they find their community, they are free to do that,” the representative said. “They are in our care. They are not in our control. ... they are not imprisoned at the facility.”
