NEW YORK — A group of migrants staying at a Manhattan hotel refused to be transferred to a new facility at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, sparking protests involving dozens of people from Sunday night through Monday. in the morning.
Earlier this month, New York City signaled it would turn the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal into a temporary shelter for 1,000 single men, and on Sunday officials began relocating immigrants from the Watson Hotel in downtown city, to the cruise terminal.
However, according to local activists who help migrants, some of the first men transported saw the accommodation conditions in the terminal and immediately turned around and went back to demand to be let into the Watson Hotel.
“Very basic beds, from head to toe, with no space between them, there are four bathrooms in the entire facility for a thousand beds,” Sergio Uzurin told reporters outside the hotel on Sunday night. “They have described that there is only food during limited hours and that sometimes the water runs out, and more importantly, it is cold there too.”
As of Monday morning, a crowd was still camped out outside the Watson, trying to get back inside.
The city defended the terminal facilities, saying the space at the Watson was needed to deal with the large influx of migrant families being brought into the city from the border.
“More than 42,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since last spring, and we continue to exceed our moral obligations by providing asylum seekers with shelter, food, health care, education, and a host of other services. The facilities of the Brooklyn Cruise terminal will provide the same services as any other humanitarian aid center in the city, and the scheduled relocations to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal this weekend went ahead as planned.We continue to seriously need the support of our state and federal government,” said the City Council.
Last summer, Texas officials began ferrying border-crossing asylum seekers almost daily from local facilities to New York City, whose housing rights laws mean the city has to house all migrants.
The influx has stretched the city’s infrastructure to breaking point, prompting Mayor Eric Adams recently to suggest it was close to being able to accommodate any more people. According to the city’s Department of Homeless Services, as of last Thursday, nearly 70,000 people were in city-supported shelters, including more than 16,000 single adult men.
(The number includes both immigrants and the local homeless population.)
