More busloads of migrants arrived at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan Saturday and others settled into a facility on Staten Island as New York City administrators continued to grapple with a new tidal wave of asylum seekers.
The Post watched three busloads of migrants, clutching shopping bags and pushing toddlers in strollers, arrive at the hotel, which has been dubbed “asylum seeker arrival center” by the city.
Migrants at the 1,000-room iconic hotel, near Grand Central Terminal, will have access to health care, legal and reconnection services, according to the city.
Other migrants, spread out in facilities throughout the five boroughs, will have access to the hotel, which has been shuttered for the past three years. The city said this week that it plans to use 850 rooms at the Roosevelt Hotel to house migrants and their families.
Photos viewed by The Post from inside the Hungerford School in Staten Island, where more than 300 migrants have settled into a bare-bones emergency shelter this week, showed laundry drying on window sills and new arrivals laying and sitting on blue cots.
A sign taped to a girl’s bathroom read, “Women. No Men,” in several languages, including Arabic, Russian, Spanish.
The facility is housing 307 men and 71 women, but no children, said a recent visitor.
“There are three working showers” and a musky smell pervades the building,” Staten Island Republican Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo told The Post after a visit to the school Saturday. “I don’t think there’s any ventilation. It’s only going to get worse when the weather warms up.
Pirozzolo told The Post that migrants were given MetroCards with two rides on them to help them get to appointments. They also have mobile phones, he said.
“They can come and go as they please,” he added. “It’s going to be open indefinitely. Some have court dates for 2031.”
The city has been struggling under a wave of more than 60,000 migrants who have been arriving in the past several months. Last week, the federal government ended the Trump-era COVID policy Title 42 that allowed Border Patrol agents to quickly turn back migrants at the southern US border.
Last year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott began busing migrants north to urban centers, including New York City, Chicago and Washington DC. Tens of thousands of migrants have descended on Texas border cities, such as El Paso, which declared a state of emergency in December.
In addition to empty hotels and schools in the five boroughs, New York Mayor Eric Adams has created a storm of controversy by bussing migrants to hotels in Rockland and Orange Counties.
“I’d like to see an investigation,” Pirozzolo told The Post. “I’m concerned about the warehousing of people. I don’t see the situation getting any better.”