Migrant Shelter on Randall’s Island Will Close in February, Adams Says

The shelter complex, which was built atop recreational fields, will be gradually emptied and the fields restored for public use, the mayor’s office said.

New York City will close a sprawling tent shelter that houses thousands of migrants on Randall’s Island, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Wednesday.

The shelter will close at the end of February, the mayor’s office said in a news release, noting that the number of asylum seekers in city shelters has decreased for 14 consecutive weeks and is now at its lowest point in over a year.

“We’re not scrambling every day to open new shelters — we’re talking about closing them,” Mr. Adams said in the release.

As more than 210,000 migrants have come through the city’s shelter system since 2022, straining its capacity, officials have worked to reduce the number of people who remain in the city’s care, including by limiting shelter stays to 30 or 60 days. The city was sheltering 60,600 migrants as of this week.

The giant tent complex, built atop recreational fields on Randall’s Island, was at one point the city’s largest migrant shelter, housing more than 3,000 adults. But it had also become a pressing source of concern.

The Randall’s Island Park Alliance, a nonprofit organization that helps maintain the island, had threatened to sue the city after the shelter was erected, arguing that it was an illegal takeover of public parkland.

“The administration heard our concerns, and we appreciate them working with us on this issue,” Deborah Maher, the president of the alliance, said in a statement on Wednesday. “We look forward to working with NYC Parks to restore this important resource, and welcoming back thousands of children from across the city to their newly restored sports fields as soon as possible.”

Reports of petty thefts and brawls among migrants have been common inside the shelter, where migrants sleep in rows of back-to-back military cots. The grounds outside the shelter also became the site of occasional violence, including a stabbing in August and a shooting in July that left one Venezuelan mother dead and injured two other migrants.

A makeshift encampment of homeless migrants had also popped up outside the shelter, despite the city’s efforts to take it down.

As problems at the shelter flared this summer, city officials announced that they had moved 800 migrants, or more than 25 percent of the shelter’s population, out of Randall’s Island in an effort to make the situation more manageable.

City Hall indicated on Wednesday that it would continue to reduce the number of migrants in the shelter over the coming months to gradually restore the athletic fields and parkland it occupies.

Our Coverage of the Adams Administration

• Adams Indictment: Federal prosecutors unveiled a five-count indictment against Mayor Eric Adams, charging him with bribery conspiracy, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations.
• What Happens Next?: The indictment of Adams prompted calls for his resignation, but there is no legal requirement that he leave office. Gov. Kathy Hochul has the power to remove him.
• Federal Investigations Swirl: The case against the mayor is among several federal corruption investigations that have reached people in Adams’s orbit.
• Housing Proposal: Adams’s plan to ease the city’s housing shortage by making way for more than 100,000 new homes cleared the City Planning Commission, setting up a tougher fight between the administration and the City Council.
• Stop and Frisk: The N.Y.P.D.’s discipline for illegal street detentions is lax at every level — a failure that reaches all the way to the top of the force — according to a review ordered by a federal judge.