NYC’s 20,000 Migrants Are Fueling the City’s Underground Economy
The influx has spurred a shelter and schools crisis, but new arrivals say what they are after now is work.
It’s still dark out when the men in work boots start gathering by V&F Car Wash in the Bronx. They’re waiting along the highway in hopes of being picked up for construction jobs. The work is demanding and irregular, but it pays in cash and, crucially, doesn’t require work authorization.
The men are among the 20,000 migrants that have flooded into New York City since April, many of them bused from Republican-led border states like Texas and Arizona. Mayor Eric Adams declared a billion-dollar “state of emergency” and put up a tent city to temporarily house the influx of Central and South Americans that had overwhelmed the shelters.