The Sputtering Effort to Persuade Migrants to Leave New York

Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll find out about a $25 million program that’s struggling to relocate migrant families in New York City. We’ll also get details on the proposed congressional map for New York State that Democrats hope will let them recapture the House in November.

Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Sury Saray Espine, above, with her children, is a rare success story in a state program designed to help migrants. She and her family spent 13 months in a homeless shelter in New York City before moving to an apartment on Long Island, thanks to a $25 million program that was set up to relocate migrant families and ease the pressure on the city’s shelter system. The program will cover the rent when a family moves out of a shelter.

I asked Dana Rubinstein — a Metro reporter who, with Andy Newman and Wesley Parnell, took a detailed look at the program — to explain its shortcomings.

The state emergency services commissioner said in November that this program wasn’t working. Why isn’t it?

There are so many reasons. Many migrants don’t want to leave New York City, where there are jobs, where you can get around without a car and where their kids are enrolled in public schools. Buffalo may be the second-largest city in New York, but it’s not the place with the international reputation.