POUGHKEEPSIE – Dutchess County Executive William O’Neil’s executive order and issued a state of emergency to prevent migrants and asylum-seekers from being relocated to Dutchess County. The orders, signed on May 19, 2023, seek to prevent hotels and other businesses from renting rooms to displaced immigrants seeking residence in America. He is seeking additional information about the plans by the City of New York.
“This is not about Christianity. This is also not about humanitarianism. It’s not even political,” said the spiritual O’Neil.
“This is about my responsibility, as Dutchess County Executive, to answer to the residents of this county about what is happening in their community, how their tax dollars will be spent and how the safety and well-being of the community is maintained. Because of the ineffective leadership at the helm of federal, State and city government, I can’t answer any of those questions in relation to the housing of migrants and asylum seekers,” O’Neil said.
He said they have asked the offices of the mayor and governor to tell the county who they will be bussing into Dutchess County. Oneil said they asked for information including names, DOB, country of origin, criminal record, medical issues, family/local contacts, and specifics about their asylum request. “We receive absolutely nothing. There is no transparency, no honesty, just deception.”
O’Neil claims, as have officials in other area counties, that the City of New York, state and federal government “have each failed to establish a reasonable plan, has been too incompetent to formulate a solution and has been totally incapable of executing even the simplest process. Combine that with non-existent communication skills and unwillingness to seriously collaborate, and mix in a propensity for deception, and you have the recipe for disaster.”
O’Neil said the issue is “about governmental malfeasance. This is malpractice in leadership of epic proportions.” He called himself a “whistleblower. The SOE and EOs I signed this week are the tools we have to make them listen – to spotlight these failures and advocate for real solutions for all involved.”
The Executive Order banning migrants from being in Dutchess County admits that the O’Neil administration is “ill-equipped to meet the needs of homeless individuals who require immediate shelter and social services and who may remain in Dutchess County for an indefinite duration,” citing public safety risks.
The order threatens to use local sanitary codes, zoning codes, and building codes to prevent the housing of migrants in Dutchess County.
O’Neil’s order includes the warning that violators who house migrants in their “hotels, motels, or other short-term rentals presently permitted as temporary residences to be constructed, enlarged, developed, improved, converted, used or operated for any reason other than the designated purpose authorized by permit, including long-term housing, a rooming house, an emergency shelter, or a homeless shelter,” face a criminal misdemeanor charge.
