Dozens of migrants who crossed into the U.S. illegaly through the southern border are now refusing to leave a New York City hotel as officials try to relocate them to a different shelter.
The migrants have temporarily resided at the Watson Hotel in Midtown Manhattan since last year, but were scheduled to move to a migrant relief center at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
Asylum seekers who don’t want to leave the taxpayer-funded accommodations at the hotel say they are comfortable in the private hotel and do not want to relocate to a shelter with a more communal setting.
“The space doesn’t afford the same kind of individual living area that people have now, and it makes them uncomfortable to be in a space with that many people who they don’t know, who they may have concerns about,” Legal Aid Society attorney Josh Goldfein told CBS News.
Outside the Watson Hotel in NYC where migrants are being sheltered, some adult males slept here overnight & refused to be relocated to the less hospitable Brooklyn Cruise Terminal to make room for migrant families
Homeless outreach provided a tent and some basic goods pic.twitter.com/BtgtvbWpjy
— Timcast News (@TimcastNews) January 30, 2023
CBS reported that city officials began moving people out of the Watson on Saturday Jan. 28, an effort expected to take four days, but that the first round of migrants texted others videos of the new shelter.
“The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal is ugly. It’s disgusting,” one asylum seeker said through a translator, CBS reported.
Migrants who were protesting the move set up camp outside of the Watson Hotel, causing the New York Police Department (NYPD) to shut down eastbound traffic. City officials told the New York Post that it “was so-called advocates and not actual migrants who stoked dissent and encouraged dozens of asylum-seekers to stand their ground at a three-star Manhattan hotel rather than go to a new mega-shelter set up by Mayor Eric Adams.”
Timcast field reporter Elad Eliahu captured footage of several activists working to facilitate the illegal migrant camp on New York City streets. One was reportedly a protest monitor with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who was coordinating with at least one member of the far-left, violent extremist group Antifa.
Last week, six Antifa members were charged with domestic terrorism following violent riots that left shattered windows, a burning police car, and other damage. The activities of the group were classified by the U.S. Department of homeland Security (DHS) as “domestic terrorist violence” in 2017.
ACLU “protester monitor” coordinates with antifa pic.twitter.com/8iA2Z4rhXx
— Timcast News (@TimcastNews) January 30, 2023
South Bronx Mutual Aid (SBMA) posted a thread on Twitter alleging that the Adams administration is not being forthcoming about the crisis.
“Asylum seekers were first on the scene and self-organized after being evicted, blocked from belongings, or fleeing Red Hook Marine Terminal. They both spoke out and contacted more mutual aid organizers, requesting humanitarian and legal support,” the organization said.
Watson Migrant Crisis 🧵 2/ Asylum seekers were first on the scene and self-organized after being evicted, blocked from belongings, or fleeing Red Hook Marine Terminal . They both spoke out and contacted more mutual aid organizers, requesting humanitarian and legal support
— South Bronx Mutual Aid (@SBXMutualAid) January 30, 2023
SBMA says New York City officials need to provide a permanent housing solution, recommending the city use an alleged 88,000 vacant, rent-stabilized units.
A recent report on The Row, a separate hotel housing migrants, quoted an employee who says that the illegal aliens staying at the $500-per-night hotel were “trashing” it, with migrants who are “drunk, drinking all day, smoking marijuana [and] consuming drugs” destroying rooms and wasting thousands of dollars of food.
