Asylum-seekers

New York City has discontinued the actions it filed against the Town of Riverhead and the County of Suffolk and most of the other counties it sued in June, seeking to invalidate their emergency orders banning the relocation of migrants and asylum-seekers to their jurisdictions.

Representatives of Latino advocacy and immigrant support groups urged the Riverhead Town Board to have empathy for refugees from foreign countries and called on the supervisor to rescind her emergency order.

Facing a legal challenge from New York City, Riverhead Town’s most recent emergency order removes all reference to asylum seekers and migrants in its language.

Supervisor Yvette Aguiar went on the attack in her most recent executive order extending the state of emergency barring housing asylum-seekers in Riverhead motels and shelters.

Riverhead Town will now have to defend its controversial state of emergency in court. New York City is suing Riverhead , and 30 counties across the state, including Suffolk, asking a court to  invalidate  executive orders that “wall off their borders” to block the city from arranging housing for asylum-seekers in their jurisdictions.

Residents criticized Supervisor Yvette Aguiar’s declaration of a state of emergency in an attempt to block the lodging of asylum-seekers in Riverhead Town as being without factual basis, and having the potential to fuel fear and hate of immigrants.

Riverhead Supervisor Yvette Aguiar claims the Suffolk County Supervisors Association supports her emergency order. The chairperson of the organization says that's not true. Both he and at least one other supervisor say she did not have the legal authority to issue the order, which seeks to prevent asylum-seekers from being placed in lodging within Riverhead Town.