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New York City is struggling to find shelter for thousands of asylum seekers arriving in the city.
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The city on Thursday sent buses of migrants to a hotel in Newburgh, New York, 60 miles upstate.
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To accommodate their arrival, the hotel canceled rooms reserved months ago for one couple’s wedding.
A soon-to-be-married couple from Queens has landed in the middle of New York City’s ongoing immigration crisis.
Months after reserving a block of 37 rooms at the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh, New York, for their upcoming nuptials, the pair told WCBS the rooms were canceled to accommodate asylum seekers bused up from New York City.
It’s the latest in the city’s ongoing struggle to find shelter for migrants — and now, the couple, Sean Plunkett and Nicole Hoefferle, said they are left scrambling.
Plunkett and Hoefferle told WNBC they have family flying in from Ireland, England, Canada, Ecuador, and Japan for their wedding next weekend.
Plunkett and Hoefferle did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
According to The New York Times, city officials on Thursday began busing migrants to Newburgh, a town in Orange County about 60 miles north of Manhattan.
Representatives for New York City Mayor Eric Adams did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
“We figured that it would probably be a situation where they would be there, but we’d also be there, and it would just be fine,” Plunkett told WNBC. “When we called the manager, she basically verbally informed us, ‘No, we’ve canceled all the blocks for the next few months.'”
In a statement to Insider, a representative for Choice Hotels, the chain that owns the Crossroads Hotel, said: “All affected guests will be contacted for assistance with rebooking their upcoming reservations.”
In October 2022, Adams declared a state of emergency amid an influx of thousands of Latin American migrants. In the past year, 61,000 migrants have come to the city, per The New York Times, and the expiration of Title 42, a Trump-era policy, could exacerbate the problem.
Title 42, which expired Friday, allowed government officials to swiftly deport migrants, some of whom might have otherwise been granted asylum, according to the outlet. Per The Times, 4,200 migrants have arrived in the city in the last week alone — and state officials have said that the end of Title 42 could increase that number to 5,000 per week.
As for Plunkett and Hoefferle, the couple is trying to keep spirits high ahead of their wedding day.
“I don’t think that it’s really beneficial to myself or Nicole to take our anger out on New York City, or on Orange County, or on the hotel,” Plunkett told WCBS. “At this point we really just want our wedding to be as wonderful a day as we’ve hoped.”
Read the original article on Insider
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