LISTEN:
We have an update on the asylum seekers in Sullivan County, and that update is that they are no longer in the county. They’re now in Poughkeepsie.
How did this story start?
Sullivan County received word from New York Mayor Eric Adams’s office on Wednesday night that asylum seekers would be arriving at two motels in Sullivan County in the following days.
This was part of the voluntary program that Adams announced back on May 5 to relieve the stress of overcapacity shelters in New York City by sending asylum seekers to neighboring counties at the city’s expense.
The Sullivan County Legislature released a statement opposing the practice of sending these folks out of the city to counties like Sullivan.
Then, early that afternoon, Sullivan County declared a state of emergency, and this morning Radio Catskill received word that these folks were gone. Workers with Sullivan Allies leading Together or SALT, which was coordinating aid efforts for the asylum seekers, discovered they were no longer at the Knights Inn as of Sunday afternoon.
So, the statement from Sullivan County’s communications director, Dan Hust, confirmed this news. He said, according to the owner of the Knight’s Inn, that in order to run a successful operation in the coming weeks and months, the contractor for New York City, who was working with these folks, “essentially required full use of the entire hotel.”
However, the owner was unwilling to do so, citing his existing obligations to Sullivan County and his desire to support his privately paying customers who are already booking rooms in advance of another busy summer in the Catskills from Sullivan County.
Not true. Insider here. Migrants left not because of an ownership decision…they left because the rooms were unclean and contained insects and remnants of vermin. Ultimately Sullivan county didn’t want to house them, and the knights inn was unfortunately in poor condition and unsuitable for families.