What makes a humanitarian crisis a crisis is the lack of human welfare, or the violation of human rights. The reason the Migrants are coming to the United States is because of its quality of life. The US, despite its shortcomings, is well developed. The average person lives well overall compared to immigrants from countries of origin. That said, governments by nature are overwhelmed by whatever issues are going on and their responses can be lacking. The government in New York City is proof of this. New York City has been going through somewhat of a rough patch in recent years. First, they dealt with COVID and only just started to recover by the time when the first migrants arrived.

Commandeered hotels were converted into shelters for the homeless, these shelters later became inhabited by the Migrants as they had nowhere else to go. Tent cities started popping up as shelters became overcrowded. This led to emerging evacuations when rough weather came. The Migrants were evacuated to places like schools and other public buildings.

Healthcare in the United States is not universal, and the few free clinics are often understaffed, underfunded, and undersupplied. Most migrant children did not have vaccinations within compliance of New York City regulation. Therefore they were not able to attend school immediately. However, this was quickly solved by emergency vaccination drives. The issue of medical records has also come up as they are almost non-existent. Migrants would have to check into shelters allowing officials to track where they were and keep up to date records.

The mental health of these Migrants was shattered entirely with most having undergone some kind of abuse whether it was on the journey to the US or before. The skepticism of officials and the government meant that seeking what little available help there was a tenuous process as the migrants would become defensive due to their history.

Nutrition-wise, the Migrants are mainly reliant on soup kitchens which try to give a balanced diet or Public Schools providing free lunch to them. Without this, their diets would mainly consist of either junk food or leftovers, it can be understated how critical this is. There was also a program that gave families an allowance to grocery shops that ended in early November 2024.

There has been a lot of hysteria and misconceptions about the Migrants and their relation to criminal activities. So far most of the evidence that has come out related to this shows migrants main crimes being the fact that they’re employed illegally. There is little evidence to tie the majority of the Migrants to more serious offenses. That said, it should be noted these Migrants are more than likely victims. They have been known to pay smugglers, sometimes referred to as Coyotes, to traffic them across the border. They later become extorted by the same people who helped them across the border. The coyotes also dabble in the drug trade coercing Migrants to sometimes act as mule albeit uncommon. There has been this villainization of Migrants in which they fall under negative stereotypes or generalizations. Often, it is lost on people that they are just trying to give themselves a better living for them and their children.

The welfare and security of the Migrants may be subpar for our standards or the ones of foreign observers. Yet, to the Migrants it is a step up for a few of them. So far New York City has been lucky in that it has avoided riots, disease outbreaks, and other disasters. The locals sympathize with Migrants yet also are weary of having to pay for all of the costs.