Migrants kicked out of Midtown hotel have set up tents on sidewalk after refusing to move to shelter

The Big Apple’s migrant woes worsened on Monday, as dozens of asylum seekers that had been put up at trendy Midtown hotel set up a tent encampment outside rather than move to a impromptu shelter set up by Mayor Eric Adams.

The encampment sprouted out outside The Watson Hotel seemingly overnight, and serves as the latest development in the city’s ongoing struggle to house an abnormal outflow of asylum seekers seen in recent months.

Several failed courses of action to quell the burden –  such as a planned tent city in The Bronx and a proposed facility on Randall’s Island that never materialized – have failed in recent months, and resulted in many of the migrants being housed at the $450-a-night, 3.5-star hotel, where they have remained since November.

Last week, Adams announced that a then-planned shelter at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal would become the new home for at least 1,000 male migrants, offering a deadline to vacate of this Monday for men currently staying at the Watson.

That spurred several migrants Sunday night to take up outside the building to protest the mayor’s declaration – with many outright refusing to relocate, citing privacy concerns and non-optimal conditions at the pop-up facility.

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By Monday, as several found themselves locked out of their respective rooms at the Watson, the predominantly Latin American procession remained, setting up camp directly outside the luxury building in direct defiance of Adam’s order. 

Photographs taken Monday morning show dozens of tents lining the sidewalk on 57th street directly outside the hotel, while some male asylum seekers were seen keeping warm by wrapping themselves in blankets and sleeping bags.

They were reportedly removed from their rooms one-by-one, with others returning to their rooms Monday telling reporters they were not being allowed back into their rooms to retrieve their belongings. 

Messages scrawled on cardboard in Spanish littered across the campsite offered a glimpse into the mindset of the displaced group, all of whom were men.

‘Nesecitamos vivienda para dormir,’ one of the signages read, which translates to ‘We need a place to sleep.’

Another read, ‘Nesecitamos ayudo por favor,’ which, in English, simply means: ‘We need help.’

One sign, also penned in Spanish, demanded an end to discrimination against immigrants.

The outdoor encampment sprouted up sometime before 4am, spurring officers from the NYPD to arrive on the scene just a few hours later. As of noon Monday, a police patrol car remained at the scene The Watson, seemingly to monitor the situation.

Earlier in the morning, the displaced asylum seekers protested their prospective transfer to the cruise terminal – which, unlike the Watson, offers migrants only a single, army-style cot as opposed to an actual bed – by painting a massive banner to be hung on the scaffolding outside the Watson Hotel.

‘Hogares permanentes!’ a spray-painted message read, translating to ‘Permanent homes.’

The call for alternative housing was accompanied by another demand, this one written in English, that besieged New York officials such as Adams to ‘cancel rent.’

The tents reportedly were gifted to the displaced men by members of the local community, after several were seen in the early morning sleeping on Mylar blankets spread directly on the concrete. 

Within hours, organizers would set up a table complete with coffee, bananas, water, and pizza for the migrants, as members of the press also convened to cover the developing demonstration.  

Refusing to leave Monday morning, several of the asylum seekers said that they are hoping their noncompliance spurs Adams to reconsider his office’s plan to relocate them to the Red Hook ferry terminal.  

In one of the most recent updates to the ongoing saga, Adams, 62, announced that the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal – set near the southern end of the East River between Brooklyn and Governors Island – would open and house about 1,000 male migrants.  

The Watson, one of multiple hotels being used to house migrants, is a men’s-only shelter – with Adams’ recently laid plan calling for those who had been shacked up there free of charge for the past three months to be relocated to the terminal and the bare-bones shelter.

Upon announcing his intentions, Adams said his office planned to replace the displaced single male migrants with families that are currently being put up at the $700-a night Row, a nearby luxury hotel in Hell’s Kitchen.

Early Monday morning, as the migrants’ eviction deadline rapidly approached, only a small number were seen getting on buses tasked with bringing as many of the asylum seekers as possible to the Brooklyn shelter.

DailyMail.com cameras captured some of those pressured to get on the buses to their new bare-bones home, with three departing the hotel with only 15 to 20 people. 

The shelter – photos of which have already been circulating on social media – will not be a permanent home, however, as the city has promised to close the facility in time for cruise season in the spring.

That said, the tent procession seen on Monday will likely be even more temporary, with such encampments historically being broken up under Adams’ administration, and unlikely to stay for long.

Still refusing to move as of Monday, many of the migrants have voiced concerns over conditions at the Red Hook shelter, reportedly citing the ‘basic beds’ and cold interior.

Photos that have since surfaced online seem to corroborate at least some of these accounts, showing the terminal interior packed with cots set just a few feet from one another.

It comes as since summer, tens of thousands of asylum seekers – predominantly from Latin America – have been carted into New York and several other so-called ‘sanctuary’ cities, sometimes 2,000 at a time.

The sudden influx has put the city’s shelter system to its limit, Adams has warned last week, and reportedly cost taxpayers $1 billion in 2022 alone.

After several failed courses of action to quell the burden – such as the planned tent city in The Bronx and on Randall’s Island, and several pricey, non-sustainable alternatives such as The Watson and Row – Adams has faced criticism, and has repeatedly gone back to the drawing board.

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Meanwhile, more and more busses continue to arrive to the city’s Port Authority Bus Terminal each day – bringing with them hundreds of tired, huddled men, women, and children at a time.     

Those migrants have been ferried across the city, from shelter to shelter and to various hotels, as the city’s seemingly never-ending migrant saga continues to persist.

Adams has previously told citizens in his crime-ridden city to expect migrant facilities to soon grace  ‘every community,’ while warning residents they should expect shelters to pop up in their neighborhoods without warning.

Sources have said the mayor’s plans, however, have been poorly thought out and often fast-tracked, causing them to almost always fall apart. 

Adams, meanwhile, has remained bullish on asking for federal help, doing so again at  rally outside City Hall Sunday. 

Buses of migrants have been arriving in NYC since fall when Republican governors, primarily Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, began sending asylum seekers from the border to largely Democratic-leaning cities, causing the current crises. 

Washington has approved $800million in spending to aid the crisis but it will go to various cities across the country. 

Even if it were all going to New York, the city will still spend more money on its own to help the migrants, according to ABC7. 

On Sunday, despite the widely reported reservations exhibited by displace asylum seekers outside The Watson. Adams touted how in New York, migrants will live in better conditions than in other cities. 

‘People are sleeping on the streets in El Paso,’ Adams said at the rally. ‘There sleeping in airports. I spoke to my colleague in Chicago, people are sleeping in the basement of libraries. No family is sleeping on our streets.’ 

He added that there are no plans for the city to stop taking in migrants but that they will need extra preparation if the Supreme Court lets Title 42 – the pandemic rule making it harder to seek asylum in the US – expire. 

Activists are not happy with the constant moves, saying that it’s not an adequate fix.  

‘Now they’re going to be moved to a building that was not designed for living, that the city is gonna have to prepare for people to sleep in, and only for a short period of time,’ Josh Goldfein of the Legal Aid Society said. 

‘We’re gonna invest a lot of resources to get this building ready only to dismantle it again, I guess when cruise ships start coming in again.’

The location is also isolated and far away from accessing medical care and opportunities to work. 

‘The city has tens of thousands of New Yorkers in shelter currently who were there before the migrants started coming who could move out if they had some assistance,’ Goldfein added.

Earlier this year, Adams made headlines for saying ‘there is no more room’ in New York, after previously stating the city would always welcome migrants. 

 DailyMail.com has reached out to Adams’ office for comment.

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk