For months, both Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have stressed the importance of employment as a path out of taxpayer-funded shelters for the roughly 69,000 new immigrants currently in the city’s care.

“Migrants and asylum seekers came here to work – so let’s put them to work,” Gov. Hochul said in August, announcing a program in which the State’s Department of Labor (DOL) would connect with employers to find job openings fillable by migrants and asylum seekers with work authorization.