Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has described the situation as a crisis and has begun to warn that shelters are so full that migrants will soon be forced onto the street as winter approaches. “I cannot say this enough. You know, we are out of the room,” he told reporters this week. “And it’s not ‘if’ people will be sleeping on the streets, it’s when. We are at full capacity.”

The city’s plan to offer migrants transportation builds upon previous efforts to send the asylum-seekers elsewhere, though the establishment of the dedicated reticketing center marks a renewed emphasis on the strategy. The city has stressed that the offer for travel is voluntary.