Migrants from Mauritania and Senegal were the most likely to receive eviction notices, but not the most populous groups in shelters, a New York Focus analysis found.
Sokhona Khassa had heard that New York City would take him in. A migrant from Mauritania, Khassa, 29, had traversed Central America to arrive at the southern border of the United States, where fellow migrants told him he would fare better in New York. When he got there, he was disappointed.
“The staff treated us badly,” said Khassa, in French, of his time in a city shelter. “When they pass us, they cover their nose. It’s like you’re dirty or something.”
In July 2023, the same month Khassa arrived in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams capped migrants’ shelter stays at 60 days. Khassa got his first notice in August. In September, Adams reduced the shelter limit to 30 days for single adults.
In a first-of-its-kind analysis, New York Focus found that notices to vacate shelters have been disproportionately served to migrants from Mauritania and Senegal. Out of 14,000 notices, migrants from the two African countries received 44 and 32 percent, respectively — the highest and second-highest share. In population data provided to New York Focus, the countries accounted for fewer migrants in city shelters than Venezuela, Ecuador, or Colombia. (The city provided data over a year ending in October 2023, but it was not broken down monthly.)
The disparity appears partly to be a product of the policy’s design. At first, the city only served notices to single adults, who make up 90 percent of the Senegalese and Mauritanian shelter populations. Because of the increased distance and cost of the journey, migrants from Africa are more likely to travel alone than those from South and Central America, resulting in unequal outcomes.
The African population has always been a concern of ours,” Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, told New York Focus. He said his group worried “that they would be left out in the wind in this moment.”
