Residents in Staten Island yelled at asylum seekers to go home after officials tried to convert a former high school into a shelter for migrants in the latest battle of the immigration crisis.
Officials had sent about 50 migrants to St. John Villa Academy in Arrochar and had planned to send a total of 300 migrants, but they met with furious resistance from residents and local officials.
Hundreds of community members protested against the plans on Wednesday and claimed that the shelter would bring crime and endanger their children.
On Friday, residents yelled at migrants as they got off a bus and arrived at the shelter. One man could be heard yelling, “Go home!” and “You’re not welcome!” Some of the migrants chose to leave as a result of the rancor.
Officials then successfully petitioned for a judgment to stop the shelter, but the remaining migrants have refused to leave.
Judge Wayne Ozzi ruled that the shelter would cause undue burden on the community and said that officials would have to shut it down until another hearing on Sept. 6.
“This is only the beginning of all legal remedies that I and our local elected leaders are prepared to take as we vigorously pursue every angle possible to stop this injustice to our taxpaying constituents who cannot and should not bear the burden of President Biden’s, Governor Hochul’s, and Mayor Adams’ failures,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.).
One county in western New York has refused to take in any more migrants after two alleged incidents of sexual assault. That led to a combative back-and-forth between New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, both Democrats.
A spokesperson for Adams said in a statement to CBS News that other cities had to help bear the cost and burden of sheltering the migrants that were being sent to New York City.
“As we have emphasized repeatedly, with more than 100,000 asylum seekers that have come through our intake system since spring 2022 and hundreds more continuing to arrive in our city asking for shelter daily, New York City has been left largely alone to deal with a national crisis that demands difficult and swift decision-making,” read the statement in part.
“[W]e located the vacant St. John Villa Academy to serve as one of our respite sites for single women and adult families,” the statement continued. “We understand community concerns and want to assure them that we are working to ensure the site is well-managed. While New York City is leading the nation in welcoming asylum seekers, make no mistake, we cannot continue to do this alone.”
NYC officials say more than 100,000 migrants have arrived in the city and that they have been tasked to care for more than 58,000 of them.
New York officials have cried for help from the Biden administration after Republican governors began busing some of the migrants crossing into their states to the “sanctuary state” that previously claimed to be welcoming to all migrants.
Here’s the news report about the migrant shelter crisis:
Migrant crisis reaches boiling point on Staten Islandwww.youtube.com
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