A new video being shared widely online depicts the true impact of the border crisis on the New York City streets. According to The New York Post, migrants can be seen filling the sidewalks surrounding the historic hotel at 45th Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, stretching from the hotel door up East 47th Street.
Watch the clip above.
From The New York Post:
The group slept shoulder-to-shoulder across three full blocks while waiting to be taken into the currently full city shelter as NYPD officers monitored the situation.
Heartbreaking images showed crowd-control ropes separating the migrants from passersby, as those waiting for access to proper shelter huddled under blankets with their belongings alongside them.
Groups of migrants also have slept inside white “dollar vans” parked outside the hotel after they were turned away because of overwhelming numbers.
“Right now, it’s essential that we get on top of the inhumane & concerning conditions immediately as we figure out how to change intake,” frustrated City Council majority leader Keith Powers (D-Manhattan) tweeted over the weekend, citing “the situation” at the Roosevelt.
The 1,000-room Roosevelt Hotel, located near Grand Central Terminal, had been closed for nearly three years given the COVID pandemic. It then became the city’s main “asylum seeker arrival center” earlier this year.
Nearly 100,000 migrants have come to the Big Apple since spring 2022 with 2,500 more pouring in every single week.
More over at The New York Post:
Sobering video shows migrants sleeping on cardboard outside iconic NYC hotel as shelter hits capacity https://t.co/qIYVki8LNs pic.twitter.com/UjTRBYhGpR
— New York Post (@nypost) July 31, 2023