Shocking pictures have laid bare New York City’s migrant crisis after dozens of people were seen sleeping outside the iconic Roosevelt Hotel which has reached capacity since being turned into a designated center for asylum seekers.
Migrants lined the street at 46th and Vanderbilt as commuters made their way to work on Monday morning, after thousands of asylum seekers were bused in by southern conservative governors.
The Roosevelt Hotel, which was shuttered three years ago, is one of several hotels that were transformed into emergency centers as the city struggles with an influx of migrants.
New York is bound by a decades-old consent decree in a class-action lawsuit to provide shelter for those without homes.
The Roosevelt Hotel and others which have become hubs for refugees are within walking distance from Times Square, the World Trade Center memorial site and the Empire State Building.
But rooms at the Roosevelt, where only migrant families have been staying, have already filled up, as the city says more than 93,000 asylum seekers came through the intake system last spring.
Some of the thousands of migrants who have arrived in NYC have been been bused in from Florida and Texas, as the states’ conservative governments argue progressive cities should share the burden.
Texas’ governor Greg Abbott has sent about 9,700 asylum seekers to New York City, according to Politico.
Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis has flown about 85 migrants to Massachusetts and California.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams responded by sending migrants to red states -with some even being sent as far as South America and China.
The Democrat spent about $50,000 of the city’s money to send 114 migrant households elsewhere – with 28 families sent to Florida with 14 sent to Texas and a few to Colombia and one family to China after being allowed to choose their destination.
Adams, who has called the immigration crisis a ‘disaster’, has opened 174 emergency shelters and intake centers.
The city is slated to spend more than $4.3billion to try and slow the crisis.
‘Children and families continue to be prioritized and are found a bed every night,’ Adams’ office said in a statement on Monday.
‘While we at least offered all adults a temporary place to wait off the sidewalks last night, some may have chosen to sleep outside and, in all honesty, New Yorkers may continue to see that more and more as hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive each day.’
The migrants sitting outside the hotel will likely be taken to a different shelter once they’re processed.
On Sunday morning, some migrants were seen leaving the hotel and getting on a city bus headed to a shelter in the Bronx, Eyewitness News reported.
