Some single male migrants are sleeping outside of a 3-star Manhattan hotel in protest of New York City’s plan to relocate them to a mega-shelter based inside a Brooklyn terminal for cruise passengers.
City officials began moving the male migrants from The Watson Hotel in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in order to let families stay there instead.
An activist who is supporting the migrants outside the hotel told the New York Post that some of the male migrants were bussed to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, but decided to return to the hotel.
The newspaper reported that about 50 migrants were staying outside the hotel as of Sunday night.
“Very basic beds, head to foot, no space in between them. There are four bathrooms in the entire facility for 1,000 beds. They’ve described multiple security gates to get in,” advocate Sergio Tupac Uzurin, told WABC-TV, the local ABC affiliate, about the cruise terminal. “They’ve described there’s only food in limited hours and sometimes the water runs out and more importantly, it’s cold in there. Despite the mayor’s claim that it’s heated, they said that it’s cold in there.”
Mayor Eric Adams announced the plan to move 1,000 single adult males to the shelter last week — making it the fifth shelter the city opened since it began having migrants bussed to them last year.
Since last spring, city officials told WABC, New York has received more than 42,000 migrants after they were bussed from the southern border.
A spokesperson for the city also insists that the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal’s facilities “will provide the same services as every other humanitarian relief center in the city.” The spokesperson emphasized that NYC needs support from both the state and federal governments.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.