Their Asylum Case Seems Strong. But Instead of Hope, They Feel Despair.

On the last day of 2023, Thierno Sadou Barry walked from his homeless shelter near Times Square to Harlem, looking to buy inexpensive suitcases he could fill up with all his possessions.

Mr. Barry and his wife, Oumou Barry, had fled political persecution in Guinea. Now, the couple and their baby daughter had to leave the homeless shelter where they had lived since their arrival in New York City nine months earlier, under recent city rules that limit shelter stays and have forced thousands of families to move.

As he walked, Mr. Barry cursed himself for leaving Guinea and coming to this cold, unforgiving place.

Back home, he had been at risk of death — and what use, he had wondered, would a dead man have been to his family? And so he had abandoned his aging parents, his preschool-aged daughter and his young sons. But now he was losing hope that he could ever send for them. He couldn’t even send money home to support them.

“I can’t even tell you how anxious, stressed and despairing I am right now,” he said in French. He had heard some families were being sent to tent shelters after they were evicted. “Can you imagine, with an 8-month-old baby?”