House Republicans want the National Park Service to explain its “unprecedented decision” to house migrants at Floyd Bennett Field, which they say has led to a concerning “uptick in crime.”
GOP members of the House Committee on Natural Resources and five New York Republicans wrote to National Park Service Director Charles Sams on Monday warning of “the inherent safety risks to employees at the park, residents of the surrounding communities, and migrants as a result of the decision to lease national park land for a migrant encampment,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.
“The widespread reports of criminality in and around the Floyd Bennett Field migrant encampment include domestic violence, assault, shoplifting, prostitution, and panhandling scams,” wrote Natural Resources Committee chairman Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, GOP conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York, and their colleagues.
The roughly 2,000 migrants kept on the shore of Jamaica Bay “are not subject to a basic background search during the intake process,” the lawmakers said, while City Hall “contracted with a private security firm” to oversee the occupants despite the federal lease listing the NYPD as the “primary entity responsible for law enforcement issues inside the perimeter” — and having ‘impeded’ officers attempting to access the camp.”
The lawmakers — including Staten Island Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and Long Island Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota and Andrew Garbarino — said “tenants, employees of Floyd Bennett Field, and surrounding residents deserve to know if they are living with migrants who have previous arrest records and/or convictions.”
Other signatories include Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations chairman Paul Gosar of Arizona and Mike Collins of Georgia.
On Sunday, Border Patrol chief Jason Owens warned that the US migrant crisis posed “a national security threat,” with roughly 1.5 million known “gotaways” evading arrest between when President Biden took office and September 2023.
At least 140,000 more “gotaways” have illegally crossed into the country since Oct. 1, Owens noted, adding that’s “what’s keeping me up at night.”
“Border security is a big piece of national security, and if we don’t know who is coming into our country, and we don’t know what their intent is, that is a threat,” the chief told CBS’ “Face The Nation”. “They’re exploiting a vulnerability that’s on our border right now.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress earlier this month he was also “very concerned” about “the overseas facilitators of the [human] smuggling network” having ties to terror groups like ISIS.
In February, a Venezuelan migrant was charged with murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley after entering the US illegally in September 2022 and escaping federal apprehension for an earlier felony charge in New York City.
More than 7.2 million migrants — a figure greater than the population of 36 states — have been apprehended at the southern border since January 2021, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Many of those are awaiting their immigration court hearings in US cities nationwide.
In January, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Border Patrol officials that over 85% of migrants encountered at the US-Mexico border have subsequently been released into the country.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has welcomed at least 64,500 migrants into New York City and is spending around $387 per migrant household to feed and shelter them — at a potential $10 billion cost to the city’s budget through the next fiscal year.
The Department of the Interior leased Floyd Bennett Field to the City of New York on Aug. 21, 2023, a move which was hailed by Gov. Kathy Hochul after lobbying the Biden administration “for many many many months” to help cover some of the mounting costs.
The National Park Service had previously barred its facilities from being used to shelter migrants. City Hall for a time entertained awarding a friend of Adams the contract to provide security at Floyd Bennett Field, Politico reported, but later partnered with a Texas-based firm.
The tent shelter has enraged some locals in Brooklyn — with one describing it as “an invasion of immigrants” — as migrants have gone door to door in nearby neighborhoods begging for cash, food and clothes.
In January, students at James Madison High School were also forced out of classrooms to allow migrants from Floyd Bennett Field to take shelter in their gym during a night of heavy wind and rain.
Adams imposed a curfew on several of the migrant tent sites that month to crack down on panhandling. At least one encampment at Randall’s Island had seen more serious incidents of drug dealing and one fatal stabbing the same month.
For a time, Jose Ibarra, the Venezuelan national who allegedly murdered Riley on Feb. 22, also lived in a homeless shelter in the Big Apple.
The lawmakers have asked for the National Park Service to hand over all its documents and communications with New York City and the NYPD related to the lease of Floyd Bennett Field by April 11.
The Post has reached out to the National Park Service and Adams’ office for comment.