The city is dramatically shrinking the migrant population at its controversial tent city on Randall’s Island while combatting rogue encampments and complaints about safety there.
About 800 residents will be moved from the massive temporary structure on the Manhattan isle, or more than 25% of the 3,000 people it can accommodate, officials said Tuesday.
Converting part of the island into a migrant encampment has been a source of contention with city families that use the park for sports and leisure activities.
The island contains 330 acres of parkland and includes a stadium, 60 athletic fields, a tennis facility and vast green space.
Disputes also have raged for weeks over the rogue migrants who are no longer allowed to live in the mega-shelter because they’ve timed out and who have instead up their own make-shift illegal encampments next to it.
The city has placed 30-day limits on shelter for individuals and 60 days for families, forcing some migrants to find other housing.
The NYPD and parks police officers have stormed the area repeatedly to break down the illegal tents and open-air market peddling drugs.
The massive tent shelter, which is managed by the city Health + Hospital agency, has also been plagued by a spate of violent incidents — including one where a male migrant was stabbed to death in a dispute in January and a fatal shooting just weeks ago in a lot on the island.
“Obviously this is in part due to public-safety issues, but obviously also because generally the population of people coming into our care continues to go down,” a City Hall rep told The Post on Tuesday, referring to the move to decrease the numbers on Randall’s.
City Councilwoman Diana Ayala, who represents Randall’s Island and pressed City Hall to slash its migrant population, applauded the action.
“We’ve had issues on the island. Having 3,000 people in such a small space was a problem,” Ayala said.
“We’re happy the city is reducing the population so people are not on top of each other.”
During Mayor Eric Adams’ press briefing Tuesday, he reported that while more than 700 new migrants entered the city system over the past week, more than 1,200 migrants also departed.
“Our goal is to find out how we can downsize to smaller locations,” Adams said while discussing complaints about mega-shelters in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.
But shrinking the large shelters is a challenge because the migrants have to be relocated elsewhere — easier said than done because of community opposition to the sites.
“You find that in the downsizing, you have to move it to other communities. And just some communities just feel they should not have any shelters at all. That’s just not fair to everyday New Yorkers that do [have shelters],” the mayor said.
But noting that the wave of migrants coming to the city is lessening, Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said the city now has a little more breathing room to manage the shelter population.
“As the census decreases, we can consolidate to other spots and move people from the largest sites to smaller sites,” she said.
“You have 700 people coming, but you have 1,200 people who are leaving. Then we can backfill in other smaller places. So we’re looking closely at that.”
There are 63,300 migrants currently in the shelter system, which involves 217 sites.
More than 212,800 migrants have come through the city’s intake system since spring of 2022, the mayor’s office said.
