JAMESTOWN — City Council members are chiming in on the possibility of housing migrants from New York City in Jamestown.

William Reynolds, R-Ward 5, read a letter he received from city resident Ted Bogdan asking the city to formally support County Executive PJ Wendel’s emergency order banning New York City from sending migrants to Chautauqua County. The council’s recent discussion comes as New York City Mayor Eric Adams is tightening shelter rules by limiting adult migrants to 30 days in city-run facilities to help ease pressures on the city’s already struggling shelter system.

“I think that’s a majority of the people I’ve spoken to and have voiced their concerns about this issue,” Reynolds said at a recent council meeting. “It’s something we need to address at some point in time. I’m not against having folks move into the city but we want them to be legal, obviously. I think the city should take a stand and not accept these folks under the potential illegalness of their immigration.”

Mayor Eddie Sundquist said he had seen and responded to Bogdan’s letter before reiterating the city hasn’t accepted anyone nor has it contracted to accept any migrants.

Some local commercial motel and hotel owners, have reportedly been approached by groups representing New York City to provide shelter for the New York City migrants and asylum seekers. The head of an asset management company for a local property owner in Jamestown told The Post-Journal he has been contacted by New York City representatives looking for private contracts between the city and the local representative. The local man helps manage a building with 70 units.

“Obviously the county has an executive order currently and that’s being litigated in court,” Sundquist said. “We have recived no contact from New York City of any landlords that we know of that have negotiated. They very well could be. We’re not aware of that and at this point the county is currenly fighting with the city of New York in order to deal with it. We don’t have the resources at this point to manage that.”

The Biden administration recently said it would grant temporary protected status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who had arrived before July 31, a designation that would allow them to more quickly gain authorization to work in the United States. New York City says it has more than 60,000 migrants currently in its care, about a fourth of them of Venezuelan origin. Since the spring of last year, more than 116,000 migrants have arrived from the U.S.-Mexico border, with Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul pushing for federal government approval for work permits for them as well.

“This process of asylum seekers is different from refugees,” Sundquist said. “Refugees are those that receive federal funding to be resettled in a location and have various support services. Our migrant populations are asylum seeking populations that do not.

They are not able to get work permits, which is one of the biggest things I’ve been railing about. We’ve got open jobs, an ability to fill those jobs but they’re unable to work. So we’re trying to figure (it) out. We don’t have a fight in this. And we haven’t accepted any, although the city has received, and by the city I mean just Jamestown in general, we were made aware of a good number of asylum seekers who have migrated to Jamestown way before they started sending folks.”

Jamestown has seen asylum seeking families from Colombia reach the city while refugee families are from the Congo. Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large, said the city should be careful of its stance with migrants, mentioning specifically families from the Congo he has spoken to.

“Like the mayor is saying, I think there is a difference between individuals who are here as refugees,” Russell said. “I know there are some families here in our community, I’ve seen the photgraphs of some of these children from the Congo who have lived in tents their entire life.

And they don’t know anything else other than basically living in a tent city and they’re coming to our country under the horrible conditions they’ve been living under in the Congo.

Some of them were on their hands and knees digging for cobalt and they’re here as refugees. I can support individuals like that that are running from that type of lifestyle.

I think we need to be careful on terms, and their status here in our country. Ultimately all of us, through our ancestry, came here.”