NYC Mayor spent a night at the Brooklyn Terminal. Image Courtesy: @NYCMayor/Twitter
New York: In a bid to promote new shelters for migrants who have crossed the US-Mexico border, the Mayor of New York Eric Adams spent one of the coldest nights of the year at the Brooklyn Terminal.
Adams’ one-night stay at the new migrant facility at the terminal came after some migrants refused to leave the hotels where they had stayed previously.
The mayor chose one of the coldest nights to prove that the new migrant shelter is “warm and welcoming”.
He took to Twitter to promote the new facilities. Accompanied with pictures and videos, Adams said in a post, “Spent the coldest night of the year at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal with ‘Homeless Hero’ and advocate Shams DaBaron & @AMEddieGibbs.”
“Our brothers are being kept warm and the team working here is giving new meaning to the words ‘love thy neighbour,'” he added.
Temperatures at the Big Apple plummeted to a low of five degrees on Saturday morning.
Elaborating on the features of the new shelter, Adams said according to a WABC report, “What we saw is what we have seen since the beginning of this crisis: individuals who are grateful to the greatest city in the world for providing them the opportunity to work toward the American Dream. I’d like to be clear that the facilities at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal are providing the same services to asylum seekers as every other humanitarian relief centre in the city, and the team at the terminal is giving new meaning to the words ‘love thy neighbour.'”
Migrants refuse to leave hotels
More than 36,400 immigrants have been sent to New York City and around 14 taxpayer-funded hotels have been chosen to house them.
Many of the migrants housed in one such hotel called the Watson Hotel in Midtown Manhattan refused to leave their free-of-cost accommodation following an order to vacate the hotels.
Some protestors even protested by sleeping on the streets of New York.
In a statement made at the time Adams said, “This weekend, we began the process of moving single adult men from the Watson Hotel to Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, as we transition the hotel to meet the large number of asylum-seeking families with children.”
“More than 42,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since last spring, and we continue to surpass our moral obligations as we provide asylum seekers with shelter, food, health care, education, and a host of other services,” the mayor added.
Last month, an employee of Row – one of the hotels where migrants were housed, acted as a whistle-blower after he released videos of immigrants trashing the hotel, wasting fresh food and even ‘having sex in the stairs.’
Similar complaints have emerged in the past ever since the migrants arrived in New York City.
Activists not happy with constant moves
Mayor Adams has urged the government to send more resources in order to deal with the upsurge of migrants in the city.
Activists do not contend with the frequent moves that migrants are supposed to undertake. Josh Goldfein of the Legal Aid Society said, “Now they’re going to be moved to a building that was not designed for living, that the city is gonna have to prepare for people to sleep in, and only for a short period of time.”
Activists also claim that the location of the new shelter in Brooklyn is isolated and less accessible to medical care.
Goldfein added, “The city has tens of thousands of New Yorkers in shelter currently who were there before the migrants started coming who could move out if they had some assistance.”
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.