THE AMERICA ONE NEWS
Jun 2, 2025  |  
0
 | Remer,MN
Sponsor:  QWIKET 
Sponsor:  QWIKET 
Sponsor:  QWIKET: Elevate your fantasy game! Interactive Sports Knowledge.
Sponsor:  QWIKET: Elevate your fantasy game! Interactive Sports Knowledge and Reasoning Support for Fantasy Sports and Betting Enthusiasts.
back  
topic
NY Post
New York Post
5 Sep 2023


NextImg:Staten Island braces for more protests against former school-turned-migrant shelter

Hundreds of Staten Islanders are expected to rage outside of a former Catholic school again Tuesday night to protest the city’s expansive migrant shelter.

The planned demonstration is the fourth large-scale rally as irate locals continue to rail against the 300-bed site dumped on the borough’s Arrochar section at the former St. John Villa Academy.

New York City has struggled to find places for the more than 107,000 asylum seekers who have flooded into the Big Apple since spring 2022.

But the administration’s move to house migrants into emergency shelters across the five boroughs has faced its most severe backlash in Staten Island.

Guardian Angels founder and former Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, who is expected to attend the rally on Tuesday, called the “forgotte borough,” the latest battleground in New Yorkers pushback against Mayor Eric Adams’ handling of the crisis.

The rally on Tuesday night is the fourth demonstration planned for outside the former school
Paul Martinka
Demonstrators outside the former St. John Villa Academy in Arrochar section of Staten Island.
Hundreds have gathered outside the former St. John’s Villa Academy since the city announced plans to start housing migrants there.
Paul Martinka

The forer school has become the newest focal point for the migrant crisis that has engulfed the Big Apple since the spring of last year. More than 107,000 migrants from the US border have been shipped to the five boroughs, and nearly 59,000 are now being housed by the city.

Residents have repeatedly come out to the former school, which closed down and later bought by the city in 2018, to decry bringing asylum seekers into the area.

“We love immigrants,” John Tobacco, one of the organizers previously told The Post. “We love anyone who comes here legally.”

More than 1,000 demonstrators had protested outside the makeshift Staten Island shelter last week, with cops saying they anticipated twice as many to converge on the former school. Police beefed up their presence soon after after erecting barricades at the scene.

Some demonstrators aimed their anger at a Post reporter last week, forcing them from the scene.

Demonstrators outside the former St. John Villa Academy in Arrochar section of Staten Island.
The shelter site has faced some of the most severe backlash from locals.
Paul Martinka

As of last week, there are approximately two dozen migrants at the former St. John Villa Academy, according to City Hall.

Last week, a judge temprarily banned the housnig of migrants at the former school but it was overturned afteer an 11th hour appeak by NYC. The Appellate Court removed a vacate order which allowed the migrants already in the shelter to stay.

The next hearing is scheduled for Sept/ 14.