The Trump administration is swiftly bringing about some level of “normalcy” to the border, and it’s already having a significant impact around the country.
One sign of that return to normalcy is New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ announcement on Monday that the Roosevelt Hotel will shut down sometime in the next few months. The hotel had become an international symbol for President Joe Biden’s catastrophic open borders policies.
According to Fox News, the Roosevelt Hotel—located in the heart of Manhattan—housed nearly 200,000 illegal immigrants since it was turned into a shelter in May 2023.
While the hotel was often celebrated by the legacy media as a 21st century Ellis Island, it had become a serious blight on the city. It was obviously a haven of disorder, misery, and criminality.
The hotel shutting down the operation is likely due to two major factors.
The first is that, according to the New York Post, the number of “asylum seekers” coming to New York has dropped 150% since a year ago. This is no doubt due to the general Trump effect at the border.
Even more dramatically, the number of illegal border crossers since a year ago has entirely collapsed (according to some estimates, by 94%) due to both a change in policy with the new administration to uphold immigration laws and Trump’s clear intention to deport those who come to the country illegally.
The second reason the Roosevelt Hotel is shutting down is simply because it won’t be the beneficiary of a taxpayer gravy train anymore.
New York announced it would terminate its $220 million deal with the hotel, which is owned by Pakistan International Airlines, an airline controlled by the government of Pakistan.
It wasn’t just New York funneling money to a foreign government to facilitate the mass importation of illegal aliens. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, sent tens of millions of dollars to the hotel, too, in an absolute betrayal of American citizens by the previous administration.
Just remember as you read about the “draconian” cuts Trump is bringing to the federal government right now that back in October, FEMA was intentionally avoiding providing disaster relief to Trump-supporting victims of Hurricane Milton while at the same time sending tens of millions of dollars to Pakistan to house illegal aliens in New York.
Fortunately, the Trump administration took $80.5 million in FEMA grant money back from New York. The city is suing, calling this an act of “highway robbery.” Well, it was highway robbery, and New York certainly knows something about that.
Not only had the Roosevelt Hotel become a landing spot for countless people who were brought into the country under Biden’s lawless policies, the hotel also became a magnet for organized crime.
Multiple reports came out last September estimating that about 75% of arrests in Midtown Manhattan, where the hotel is located, were illegal aliens. Though the numbers have been difficult to track because the New York Police Department isn’t allowed to track the immigration status of people it arrests.
The hotel also has been fertile ground for Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang that has used the building as a base of operations to recruit new members. Many of these recruits are children who are often favored by the gang because they can easily escape legal consequences for their crimes.
This isn’t cultural enrichment. It’s an insult to the American people and a reckless abandonment of public safety and the public good. The Roosevelt Hotel represents the importation of criminality into our country, a subversion of our laws, and a near criminal misuse of taxpayer resources.
I can’t imagine how much the transformation of the hotel would have angered its namesake, Theodore Roosevelt. This is a rare case in which I would have been happy with a historical name change. Our 26th president didn’t deserve to be associated with this blight.
Maybe someday it will be cleaned up and restored to something Roosevelt would have been proud of.