CATEGORY Immigration

On any given night, about 3,000 migrants sleep on cots lined up inside huge heated tents on a small island that offers stunning views of Manhattan’s skyscrapers.

But as New York struggles to house a growing number of migrants who have arrived in the state from the southern border of the United States, there is simply not enough space at the massive Randall Island complex, which is currently the largest shelter in the city. city ​​for asylum seekers.

So outside the gates of the complex, a handful of people have set up their own tents amid the cold winter temperatures. Many have already exhausted the time they are allowed to be in the city’s official shelter system and have not been able to secure another space in the program or find a place of their own.

“I have many enemies and I don’t recommend any of them to any of that,” said Eliana Trillo, a Venezuelan who slept in the unauthorized camp last week during some of the coldest nights of the year. “The cold gets in everywhere.”

Nearby, enterprising migrants have set up a rudimentary market at the entrance to the shelter, selling everything from homemade coffee to cigarettes, sneakers and jeans. Although residents are prohibited from cooking in the city’s shelters, some prepared food near a public bathroom, cutting raw meat in the sink of the men’s bathroom, next to urinals and toilets.

Brayann Ruedas, who was selling $1 cups of coffee on a bitterly cold day this week, said it’s the only thing he and others can do to survive while they wait to receive their work permits.

“Selling coffee, because we haven’t found work yet,” said the 27-year-old Ecuadorian. “We arrive in the winter and in December there is not much work.”

Like other cities in the United States, New York has seen a large influx of migrants since 2022, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered many of them to be bused from the border to cities governed by Democrats. Mayors of large cities have repeatedly pleaded with the federal government for more help.

In Chicago, new arrivals have been forced to take shelter in libraries, police stations, airports and even parked city buses until shelter space frees up.

Opened in August, the Randall Island complex — which includes a series of sleeping and eating tents, as well as restroom facilities — is located on a sports field at the southern end of the island, where the Harlem and East rivers meet. . It can be reached by road or via a pedestrian bridge that extends 1.1 kilometers (more than half a mile) into Manhattan.

A few weeks ago, a 24-year-old Venezuelan man was stabbed to death at the shelter. And last week, a brawl led to another man being hospitalized with a stab wound. More than a dozen people were arrested.

Mariles Rivas, a 36-year-old Venezuelan who has been living on Randall Island for more than a month, said there is simply not enough security to maintain order at the shelter, where the majority of refugees are single men.

“Because of the danger, we were afraid to go back because of what had happened… but we needed to be here. I didn’t want to be colder,” he said as he left the complex with his partner on a cold afternoon this week.

Migrants and their advocates complain that there is little to entertain themselves on the isolated island. A previous version of the camp had a living room with televisions and lockers to store personal belongings, they said.

Dave Giffen, director of the Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy group, said the city has deliberately made life at Randall Island and other migrant shelters as unsustainable as possible in order to deter people from leaving. stay, before which the accumulated frustrations have overflowed.

“If you continually make things more difficult and more uncomfortable and harsh for them, then it’s no surprise when we see people camping in tents on the streets and sleeping on the subway,” he said. “We see people venting their anger and frustration, and we could see even worse outcomes.”

The consequences of these policies will reverberate for generations, warned Diana Ayala, a Democratic New York City Council member whose district in northern Manhattan includes Randall Island.

“When you don’t have that stability, when you don’t have emotional or social support, when you don’t know if you’re going to eat, all of this affects your mind,” he said.

New York Mayor Eric Adams’ office declined to comment this week on the tent camp or market on Randall Island, but said officials are considering installing metal detectors at that and other migrant shelters. The Democratic administration is also weighing whether to extend a curfew imposed at some facilities last week.

“Violence will not be tolerated and any illegality will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” spokeswoman Kayla Mamelak said in an emailed statement. She declined to answer follow-up questions.

More than 172,400 migrants have arrived and passed through the city’s admission system since spring 2022, according to Adams’ office. Most have since gone elsewhere or become self-sufficient, but there are currently more than 67,500 migrants in state care.

In an attempt to free up more space, the city imposed a 30-day limit on stays at single-adult shelters like those found on Randall Island. People can reapply for accommodation after their time runs out, but they are not guaranteed a bed and have to line up outside in the cold to submit their applications.

Despite the city’s long-standing “right to shelter” measure — a uniquely New York policy that requires officials to provide emergency housing to anyone who requests it — about 850 people are waiting for a shelter bed in one any given night, and the average wait time is nearly nine days, according to the Legal Aid Society, a nonprofit legal support body that has been one of the mayor’s most outspoken critics.

Meanwhile, migrants are taking shelter where they can.

Roberto Medina, a Mexican who was selling roast chicken and hot chocolate outside the Randall Island complex this week, said that when his 30-day stay was up, he resorted to sleeping on the subway, like countless others. they have done.

“We have nowhere to go, we have no one to live with,” he commented. “At least I don’t have any family. I had to come because some people wanted to hurt me.”

2024-01-26 03:32:00
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