New York City’s Law Department will have to fight its migrant relocation lawsuits on the road, in state courts in nearly a dozen counties that are trying to close its doors to the asylum seekers.

New York County Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank on Thursday ordered the city’s lawyers to litigate the cases in trial courts in Schuyler, Niagara, Onondaga, Cortland, Warren, Suffolk,  Oneida, Oswego, Saratoga and Madison counties.