BUFFALO, N.Y. -- As soon as next week, migrants in New York City could be headed to Erie County.

On Thursday, in Buffalo's Niagara Square, they got an early welcome.

"We use the butterflies because we know that people when they are able to spread their wings and fly, all of us can thrive," Meghan Maloney De Zaldivar, NY Immigration Coalition director of organizing and strategy, said.

Advocates and members of migrants services agencies, known as the Refugee Partnership, say they stand at the ready. Anna Mongo is the chief program officer for one of those organizations, Jericho Road.

"These are things we've been planning for and prepping for for probably five months since New York City became overwhelmed and New York City started having a large incoming population to them," Mongo said.

The organization's Vive shelter has been at capacity for months. However, this week, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz indicated new migrants moving upstate would likely be housed at the SUNY Buffalo State University campus where Vive already has a partnership.

"Partnerships with college campuses can be a really good and unique housing opportunity just because there is open dorm space and there is almost anything you need — laundry, bus stations are right there, anything you'd need to be able to integrate into the community," she said.

The details about how many people will come and how much funding the county and these agencies will receive is still unclear. Once the state puts a plan in action, Mongo said the Refugee Partnership will figure out logistics.

"We're all going to come together and figure that out. It probably does mean staffing up to some extent. It probably means  repurposing existing staff for a short period of time, using volunteers," she said.

Questions remain about whether the $1 billion the state allocated in the budget for migrant services will be adequate to assist New York City, let alone other regions of the state. Mongo said the amount of assistance they'll need will be determined on a case-by-case base but people coming to the region should be further along in their request for asylum, which includes a 150-day waiting period before they can work.

"We're very hopeful that people will be far enough in the process that at the end of that window they would be able to be employed, working, self-supporting, paying all the same taxes that the rest of us our paying and actually contributing to our tax base," she said.

Advocates said securing legal assistance for migrants will also be important with people from across Upstate coming to the immigration court in Buffalo.