Hotels Sue Counties Over Locking Out Illegals

M.C. Millman

In the ninth lawsuit filed in a two-week span since the first state of emergency was declared in Rockland County, five Hudson Valley hotel owners are taking legal action in federal court in White Plains against the same counties and towns that have sued the hotels and New York City to halt the transfer of illegals from New York City into local hotels.

The hotel owners, all of whom already have contracts in place with New York City, are located in Orange, Rockland, and Dutchess Counties.

The suit challenges the validity of the executive orders that at least two dozen other upstate counties have issued to block illegals from being housed for a minimum of four months before local communities are then expected to integrate the migrants at their own expense, at a time when social services and nonprofits like food banks are already vastly overwhelmed.

Among the five hotels that have banded together for the lawsuit is the Armoni Inn and Suites in Orangeburg,  where 340 illegal men were being bused to before Rockland County Executive Ed Day countered the plan just in time with the first in a long line of emergency declarations from a county to prevent the influx. Other counties were not so successful to block the unwanted arrivals in time. New York City managed to pass the buck by sending 186 asylum seekers to The Crossroads Hotel and Ramada by Wyndham in Orange County, and 86 are at the Red Roof Inn in Dutchess, both of whom have declared a state of emergency to prevent Mayor Adams from sending further buses filled with illegal migrants.

The temporary orders stopping further placements of illegal migrants will remain in effect until the court decides whether or not to issue preliminary injunctions, a longer-term order preventing hotels from taking in asylum seekers until judges issue final rulings on the legal disputes. Preliminary injunctions could be issued as early as next week.