As many as 2,000 enraged Staten Island residents were expected to protest outside a shuttered Catholic school-turned-migrant shelter Monday evening.
Neighbors of the 300-bed makeshift shelter at the former St. Villa Academy in the borough’s Arrochar section protested what they said was the unceremonious dumping of unvetted migrants in their midst.
“The message is that here in Staten Island, we love immigrants,” insisted John Tobacco, one of the rally organizers, told The Post on Monday. “We’re the most Italian-American congressional district in the country, and all our ancestors came here legally. We love anyone who comes here legally.
“To me, it’s an American message — this is unsustainable,” he said of the crush of asylum seekers to the Big Apple.
“This isn’t our problem,” he said. “I think people are fed up. We want answers from people that we voted for.”
He said the abandoned school sits between two active elementary schools — including an all-girls campus.
More than 1,000 demonstrators rallied outside the makeshift shelter last week, with cops saying they anticipate twice as many to converge on the former school Monday evening. Police beefed up their presence Sunday after erecting barricades at the scene.
Tobacco said at least nine migrants are already at the shelter, while other reports suggest nearly two dozen are already there — with fears that more are coming.
About 10 people got out of a van and went into the building Monday morning, but it was not clear if they were also migrants or workers.
“I think they should come the same way my ancestors came through — Ellis Island,” a resident said. “Make them come [into the US] the right way.
“Everybody has to get vaccinated, and why don’t they?” she said. “We don’t even know the first thing about them. You’re letting everybody into the country.”
The St. Villa shelter has become the newest focal point for the migrant crisis that has engulfed the Big Apple since the spring of last year. More than 104,000 migrants from the US border have been shipped to the five boroughs, and nearly 56,000 are now being housed by the city.
On Sunday, more than 100 demonstrators also rallied outside Manhattan’s Gracie Mansion to protest Mayor Eric Adams’ handling of the crisis, with five people — including Guardian Angels founder and former mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa — arrested at the scene.
The rally turned rowdy when about two dozen counter-protesters clashed with demonstrators.
Sliwa is expected to be on hand at the Staten Island rally as well.
Meanwhile, City Hall remained silent Monday, failing to respond to Post inquiries about the controversial Staten Island shelter.
Local elected officials even tried to block the use of St. Villa as a shelter with a last-minute letter to the city Office of Emergency Management on Friday urging, at minimum, an 11 p.m. curfew for migrants.
“My colleagues and I continue to oppose the shelter opening at Villa and will continue to use every avenue available to us to stop it,” GOP city Councilman David Carr, who signed the letter, said Saturday.
Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy