New York — New York City is suing 30 New York counties, municipalities and elected leaders for using executive orders to block the city from housing migrants within their jurisdictions — a legal maneuver the city’s lawyers say violates several laws.

The city’s lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, stems from Mayor Eric Adams’ attempts to house the thousands of migrants who’ve streamed into the city since last spring. With homeless shelters, hotels and emergency relief centers brimming, Adams has turned to several alternatives — one of which has been directing migrants to hotels north of the city in an effort to abide by the city’s right to shelter law.

Adams announced last month that his administration would send migrants to hotels in Rockland and Orange counties — the first counties to issue executive orders attempting to block the move.

Several other counties and municipalities have followed suit with similar orders since then.

In announcing the lawsuit, Adams described the executive orders as “xenophobic bigotry.” The city’s Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix called them “misguided and unlawful.”

“Over the past weeks, we have found ourselves consumed in litigation from some of these counties. Over 30 New York counties are trying to block our response to this statewide emergency by closing their borders through issuing executive orders,” Hinds-Radix said during a press briefing Wednesday. “These counties have implemented misguided and unlawful executive orders premised on false claims that the prospect of a few hundred asylum seekers sheltered at the city’s expense across multiple counties constitutes an emergency and imperils the public safety.”

Hinds-Radix accused the counties of burdening the city’s “lawful” efforts to address the ongoing crisis and said the executive orders run afoul of state social services law, state human rights law, federal immigration law and the U.S. Constitution.

“We believe the city has acted lawfully and that these localities cannot legally wall off their borders during this statewide crisis,” she said.

The city’s lawsuit asks the court to declare the executive orders from the counties “null and void” and contends that they are “an abuse of discretion.”

Among the counties named as defendants are Duchess, Onondaga, Broome, Suffolk, Niagara and Putnam, as well as several others and their county executives.