Community groups and faith leaders stood in solidarity with migrants camped outside the Watson Hotel in Hells Kitchen Tuesday, despite very cold temperatures.
“Let’s not as New Yorkers put stumbling blocks in front of them by moving them for a fourth time,” the Rev. Chloe Breyer, the director of the Interfaith Center of New York, said.
City officials had been housing single male migrants in the hotel for months, including some who had been previously relocated. However, the city recently ordered the migrants to leave the hotel in order to make room for other migrants with families.
One migrant who talked to NY1 said he doesn’t want to go from sleeping in a warm bed to sleeping in a cot.
For now, the asylum seekers have decided to remain outside rather than let the city relocate them to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, which is the location of the city’s newest migrant shelter.
The migrants say they heard from other migrants staying there that conditions at the Red Hook shelter are like a jail.
However, most of the the migrants NY1 spoke with had not seen the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal shelter themselves until Tuesday.
Manuel Castro, commissioner of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, has refuted the claims and said there is heat in the facility, food available and plenty of safe accommodations.
“There is a lot of misinformation that is spreading not only here but on social media and it’s very dangerous,” Castro said.
Castro invited migrants who were camping out to ride on the bus with him to Red Hook and see the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal for themselves.
Some accepted Castro’s offer, but when they returned to the Watson Hotel to inform the other migrants of what they saw, they said they still do not believe the facility has adequate resources or accommodations.
With temperatures dropping in a few days, these migrants will have to decide between going to the shelter, which the city maintains is safe — or freezing in the cold with assistance from advocates and volunteers.