New York City has spent more than $6 billion over the past two years to shelter people arriving from the U.S.-Mexico border.

More than 225,000 migrants have lived in shelters that became a tapestry of cultures.

They have blended into the city while living mostly out of sight. But inside the shelters, life has flourished.

150 countries. 110 languages. One shelter system.

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When the first buses carrying migrants from the southern border arrived in Manhattan two years ago, it seemed little more than a political stunt. If New York truly wanted to be a sanctuary city, then the Republican governor of Texas was happy to oblige by sending busloads of migrants its way.

No one could have predicted what would follow.

Just over 225,000 migrants have entered New York City since 2022. More than $6 billion has been spent on a hodgepodge of shelters that morphed into the largest system of emergency housing for migrants in the country.

Hundreds of hotels and vacant office buildings hit hard by the pandemic found second lives as converted shelters. Ball fields and warehouses were turned into barrack-style dormitories to house migrants from places including Venezuela, Peru, Morocco and Sudan.

The changes went beyond the struggle to house people. Politics changed, too. New York became embroiled in the national anger over immigration that helped Donald J. Trump recapture the presidency.

The president-elect increased his vote count in a city previously hostile to him, with the influx prompting Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, to reconsider one of the city’s bedrock principles: that it must provide a bed to anyone in need of shelter.

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At Yale University, for example, the share of Black students stayed the same. At Duke their percentage increased. And at Harvard, which was the target of a lawsuit charging it with discrimination against Asian students, the percentage of Asian students was unchanged, against the expectations of the plaintiffs.

The main witness to testify in support of the ban was a physician without any apparent qualifications in atmospheric science, who falsely claimed geoengineering was happening nationwide. Democrats derided the bill as ridiculous and tried to amend it with mentions of Yetis, Bigfoot and Sasquatch to prove their point.

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