Dozens of citizens appeared on Sunday in front of the mansion of the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, to complain about the immigration crisis that the Big Apple is experiencing.
“We come from different parts of the city to protest against the migrant centers in our neighborhoods. We want to show the mayor that we are not going to let this happen. He must stop inviting immigrants,” explained the leader of the anti-immigration protest, Curtis Sliwa.
In just over a year, just over 100,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York, especially in Manhattan, which by law must welcome them, so the public shelter system is saturated and has led to sheltering them in dozens of spaces that they are temporary.
Despite the fact that the protest on Sunday took place in front of the Adams residence, Sliwa explained that the culprit for this problem is President Joe Biden.
“The border is not secure. It’s total chaos,” said Sliwa, who is the founder of the Guardian Angels’ citizen patrol and a former candidate in the Republican primary for New York City mayor.
He also highlighted that “five buses arrive every day” full of migrants sent from Texas by state governor Greg Abbott, as part of his strategy to increase immigration pressure on the Democratic Party.
The Biden Administration “needs to establish a policy, since New York City is running out of space and (soon) there will be no more money,” Sliwa confirmed.
For her part, Governor Kathy Hochul expanded the emergency after requesting this week to the president that the Federal Government get involved in the crisis, especially by facilitating work permits for migrants, to which the White House has blamed the lack of “action” to Congress.
So far, more than 200 makeshift shelters have been opened, including 15 humanitarian aid centers.
In this sense, one of the solutions that Sliwa proposes is to create accommodation for new arrivals on Rikers Island, which is located between Queens and The Bronx, on the East River, where there is a maximum security prison.
“Half the buildings on Rikers Island are empty, there are unused bedrooms, cafeterias, kitchens… The plumbing, electricity and ventilation would have to be fixed. This could be a space for 20,000 people,” Sliwa explained.
The founder of the Guardian Angels said that this place could be a point of arrival for immigrants after their first six months, a period in which they cannot work legally due to bureaucratic procedures.
“They can come and go while they are there, they can get medical checkups, they can get vaccinated, we can check if they have criminal records from the countries they came from,” he said.
However, Sliwa was not politically correct in his speech at Sunday’s protest, where he shouted phrases such as: “Americans first and immigrants last” while protesters chanted “send them back”.
On the other hand, people against the protest also attended and at least one of them was arrested after trying to burn an American flag.
Keep reading:
- New York extends state of emergency due to immigration crisis amid neighborhood protests
- For 82% of New Yorkers the immigration problem is “serious” and 58% want to stop the massive arrival; Biden goes down and Trump goes up, according to survey
- Hochul Administration Accuses Mayor Adams for Refusing Help in Crisis Management for Newcomers