Nearly five years after it was ground zero for the Trump administration’s “Muslim travel ban,” JFK International Airport is preparing to welcome Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban.
Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed the city is working with federal authorities to prepare for a facility at the airport to process new arrivals, and workers for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have been reportedly unloading equipment at Building 87 at the north end of the airport for what a Port Authority spokesman called “contingency planning” at the cargo facility.
“Our Emergency Management Office was asked to work with federal and state officials on a contingency plan and to prepare a building just in case,” de Blasio said at his Tuesday, Aug. 31, briefing. “What we’re hearing right now — and of course, all of the decision-making will be made by the federal government — is that they have not yet made a decision on whether they need that building or whether there’s going to be activity at JFK. But they asked us to get ready just in case. And of course, we’re cooperating with the federal effort.”
