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Housing huddled masses is not cheap.
擁擠的住房并不便宜。
It will cost $4bn a year over three years: about 6% of what the city takes in tax, or roughly equivalent to the combined spending on the city’s fire and sanitation departments.
在三年內，每年將花費40億美元:大約是該市稅收收入的6%，或者大致相當于該市消防和衛(wèi)生部門支出的總和。
Sheltering a single family costs around $380 a night, says Murad Awawdeh, of the New York Immigration Coalition, a refugees’ rights organisation.
紐約移民聯(lián)盟(一個難民權利組織)的穆拉德說，每晚庇護一個家庭大約要花費380美元。
Renting an apartment costs a fifth of that.
租一套公寓的費用是這個數(shù)字的五分之一。
New York City is unique in having assumed this obligation.
紐約市在承擔這一義務方面是獨一無二的。
Other cities, like Chicago and Philadelphia, are also struggling to help migrants, but neither has a legal requirement to house them (or the staggering numbers New York does).
其他城市，如芝加哥和費城，也在努力幫助移民，但都沒有相關法律要求為移民提供住所(或者達到像紐約這樣驚人的數(shù)字)。
Only Massachusetts has anything remotely similar.
只有馬薩諸塞州有類似的情況。
It, too, is seeing an influx of arrivals; its governor has declared a state of emergency.
它也經歷了大量的移民涌入; 該州州長宣布該州進入緊急狀態(tài)。
Some migrants have been bused to the suburbs on the city’s dime.
政府已經出資用公共汽車將一些外來務工人員送到郊區(qū)。
But Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York state, is not a fan of moving migrants around.
但紐約州州長凱西·霍赫爾并不支持移民的遷移。
“Putting someone in a hotel on a dark, lonely road in upstate New York and telling them they’re supposed to survive is not compassion,” she said on August 16th.
她在8月16日說:“把人放在紐約北部一條黑暗、孤獨道路上的酒店里，告訴他們要活下去，這并不是同情。”
The state has directed $1.5bn to the city to help.
紐約州已向該市提供了15億美元的援助。
But it has not budged otherwise.
但除此之外，它并沒有妥協(xié)。
On August 23rd state and city lawyers gathered behind closed doors with a judge and the Legal Aid Society, a charity, to try to hash out a deal, but produced nothing.
8月23日，該州和市內律師與一名法官和一家慈善機構——法律援助協(xié)會秘密會面，試圖敲定一項協(xié)議，但最終也是徒勞。
New York has always been a gateway to America.
紐約一直是通往美國的門戶。
But in the past the government did little beyond lifting the lamp beside the golden door to the tired and poor.
但在過去，政府除了為疲憊和貧窮的人們點亮金門旁的燈之外，什么也沒做。
Migrants were expected to find their own way, and mostly did, through family and kinship ties.
移民們期望通過家庭和親屬關系找到自己的路，大多數(shù)人也做到了。
The arrivals now tend not to have such links.
現(xiàn)在的移民往往沒有這樣的聯(lián)系。
Most are from Venezuela, but people get to America from as far afield as Russia and West Africa.
大多數(shù)人來自委內瑞拉，但也有人從遙遠的俄羅斯和西非來到美國。
One Mauritanian, who is staying in a suburban hotel paid for by New York City, says his family sold their livestock to pay for his travel costs.
一名毛里塔尼亞人住在由紐約市支付費用的郊區(qū)酒店，他說他的家人賣掉了他們的牲畜來支付他的路途費用。
Most migrants would love to work, but it takes months for work permits to be issued.
大多數(shù)移民都樂意找工作，但工作許可的發(fā)放需要幾個月的時間。
Mr Adams has begged White House officials to expedite work permits.
亞當斯先生請求白宮官員加快工作許可。
Stopping people from working is “anti-American”, he says.
他說，阻止人們工作是“反美”。
But the federal government is not going to change the asylum system quickly, if at all.
但是聯(lián)邦政府不會很快改變庇護制度，如果有制度的話。
Nor is the right to shelter likely to go away—and even if it did, the city is hardly going to start dumping people on the streets.
庇護權也不太可能消失——即使它消失了，這個城市也很難開始把人們扔到街上。
“New York City would look like the West Coast cities with a lot more street homelessness,” says Kathryn Kliff, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society, a charity.
慈善機構法律援助協(xié)會的律師凱瑟琳·克利夫說:“紐約市看起來會像西海岸城市一樣，街頭無家可歸者要多得多。”
Something needs to change though.
但有些事情需要改變。
More migrants arrive every day.
每天都有更多的移民來到這里。
The mayor will have to get more inventive.
市長將不得不變得更有創(chuàng)造力。
