Leaders of a suburban New York county accused Mayor Eric Adams after 31 migrants were found crammed into a three-bedroom house in a residential neighborhood in early October.
The immigrants, who allegedly headed to the United States from Ecuador and Guatemala, were discovered sharing a 1,500-square-foot home in New City, a neighborhood in Clarkstown, Rockland County.
According to reports, detectives followed a lead and obtained a warrant to search the home, finding more than 30 immigrants.
Town officials said the children were sleeping in confined spaces on mattresses without sheets in an unfinished basement, attic and garage, where there were extension cords and a microwave.
In photos published by Rockland County, a Guatemalan flag can be seen hanging on the wall of one of the rooms.
At a news conference last week, Clarkstown Supervisor George Hoehmann called the three-room house “a migrant shelter,” describing it as the result of the “humanitarian and national security crisis that has arrived on our doorstep.” ”.
“We have never seen a situation so serious,” he said.
“We believe at least 31, maybe more, people live in this house. “Some of the most atrocious conditions we’ve ever seen…electricity totally overloaded, extension cords everywhere,” Hoehmann added.
“You can see that’s the garage, there are kids on those mattresses… this would have been an absolute disaster if there had been a fire in this house. “People would have died here, first responders would have been injured or killed.”
Clarkstown authorities believe some of the migrants arrived in the United States via the southern border just three weeks ago and were taken from Texas to New York City before going to Rockland County, Fox News reported.
According to Hoehmann, at least 10 more migrants were expected to arrive at that house in the same week.
Likewise, Ed Day, Rockland County Republican executive, indicated that although it is not clear how the migrants ended up there, he believes they are part of an “organized enterprise yet to be identified” and expressed that human trafficking could be at play.
“As a former member of law enforcement, I see this as a form of human trafficking and call on the New York Attorney General to fully investigate this matter,” he said.
The Republican said he was “dismayed to learn that people were being subjected to overcrowded conditions so dangerous that they were putting their lives at risk” when his office was first notified about what Clarkstown had discovered.
In that sense, Day blamed President Biden’s border policies for allowing the migrant crisis to get out of control and pointed to Adams’ decompression strategy for overloading the county’s already limited infrastructure resources.
“New York City’s plan would have quadrupled the homeless population overnight in our county, which has a well-documented housing crisis,” he added.
The immigrants were immediately evacuated from the home and legal action is being taken against the owner for housing violations.
Keep reading:
- Hochul says border is “too open” and calls for limits as New York faces wave of migration
- “Border closure”: on visit to New York, Texas governor asks local Democrats to pressure Biden to stop the flow of immigrants and linked them to the fentanyl crisis
- Mayor Adams tries to avert crisis of new migrants from two battle fronts in NYC