NEW YORK — A group of expatriates living in a Manhattan hotel refused to be transferred to a new facility at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, a protest that took dozens of people from Sunday night into Monday morning.
Earlier this month, New York City indicated it would turn the Brooklyn cruise terminal into a temporary shelter for 1,000 single men, and on Sunday officials began moving immigrants from the Watson Hotel in downtown to the cruise terminal .
However, according to local activists helping migrants, some of the first people transported saw the housing conditions in the terminal and immediately turned around and demanded to be moved to the Watson Hotel.
“Very basic beds, head to toe, no space between them, four bathrooms in the whole facility for a thousand beds,” Sergio Uzurin told reporters outside the hotel on Sunday night. “He described that there was only food during limited hours and sometimes water ran out, and more importantly, that there was also freezing cold.”
As of Monday morning, a crowd was still camped outside Watson’s, trying to get back inside.
The city defended the terminal facilities, saying the space in 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 ethical obligations by providing shelter, food, health care, education and a host of other services to asylum seekers. Facilities at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will provide the same services as any other humanitarian aid center in the city, and will move forward with relocation plans set for the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal later this week. We seriously need the support of our state and federal government is, “said the city council.
Last summer, Texas officials began ferrying cross-border asylum seekers from local facilities to New York City, whose housing rights laws mean the city has to house all migrants.
The flooding has stretched the city’s infrastructure to breaking point, recently prompting Mayor Eric Adams to suggest that it was close to being able to accommodate any more people. As of last Thursday, nearly 70,000 people were in city-supported shelters, including more than 16,000 single adult men, according to the city’s Department of Homeless Services.
(The number includes both immigrants and the local homeless population.)
