By:  Hadassa Kalatizadeh

New York City shelters and makeshift processing centers have exceeded capacity, leaving migrants sleeping on cardboard outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel.

As reported by the NY Post, spanning three blocks of sidewalks outside the iconic Roosevelt Hotel, located at 45th Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, newly arrived asylum seekers slept shoulder to shoulder on early Monday morning.  The historic hotel is being used to temporarily house migrant families, and as a processing center.  Videos and photos of the heart-breaking scenes were released, in which dozens of migrants waiting for access to shelters huddled with their belongings on sidewalks under blankets as NYPD officers monitored the situation.

“We’re all sleeping on the street,” Abderahim Mahamat Saleh, a 36-year-old married father of three from the Central African Republic, told The Post.  He said that he hasn’t had access to a bed since his arrival eight days ago, and that he has waited outside the Roosevelt for two days.  “We don’t have blankets or pillows. They brought in vans for some people to sleep in, but there’s not enough space in the vans,” explained the migrant, who said he left behind his family to escape his country’s militia after they broke two of his ribs and collarbone.”  He told the Post that he crossed eight countries –Chad, Turkey, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico —and before arriving in Louisville, KY.  “I came to New York City because I thought there would be help,” Saleh said. “I wish I didn’t come to New York.”

As per the Post, numerous local politicians held a rally on Monday afternoon in City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan.  “That’s why we need this crisis to be managed by the president,” said Democratic state Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar of Queens, who was one at the rally, when asked about migrants sleeping outside the hotel.  “Immigration is federally controlled. We need the president to implement common-sense fixes on our overwhelmed system,” said Rajkumar.

City Council majority leader Keith Powers (D-Manhattan), also brought up “the situation” at the Roosevelt, sharing a tweet over the weekend.  “Right now, it’s essential that we get on top of the inhumane & concerning conditions immediately as we figure out how to change intake,” he tweeted.

The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless threatened to “file litigation” if the “heartbreaking and maddening” situation continues.  “There is no dispute that the City has a legal obligation to find an appropriate placement for anyone in need of shelter in a timely fashion,” the organizations said in a joint statement.  “Denying new arrivals placement and forcing people to languish on local streets is cruel and runs afoul of a range of court orders and local laws”.

The historic 1,000-room Roosevelt Hotel, near Grand Central Terminal, was shuttered three years ago during the pandemic.  Earlier this year, it started being utilized as the city’s main “asylum seeker arrival center”.

Mayor Eric Adams, flooded with the unprecedented rush of migrants, has contracted some 10,000 rooms at over 100 hotels to try to accommodate the asylum seekers.

“We have stepped up and led the nation, but this national crisis should not fall on cities alone to navigate”, Mayor Adams said.  “We need a national solution here,” said the mayor.