New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Monday that the city's new de facto migrant welcome center, the former four-star Roosevelt Hotel, which closed its doors in 2020, reopened to house some 800 migrants.
"We opened the Roosevelt Hotel a few days ago. 800 rooms were filled or 800 people went in that location at a capacity of a little over 1,000 — that's how smooth and quick this is moving," Adams said during a press conference, according to the New York Post.
Following the mayor's comment, a rep from City Hall said that Adams misspoke and that he had meant to say 800 migrants had been processed at the hotel between Friday and Saturday.
The Post reported on Monday that dozens of migrants in front of The Roosevelt were hauled into buses to be processed. Some were forced to wait on their bus until the lines inside died down, while others who arrived around lunchtime got to eat in the ballroom.
"I want to stay here," said a 23-year-old single man from Venezuela, "but they are making us wait on the bus, and then they are taking us somewhere else." The man went on to say when he spoke to a city worker at the hotel, he told him, "no ... I wanted to stay here."
According to The Post, only families are allowed to stay at the hotel.
"They are telling me I'm going somewhere else," the migrant added. "I don't know where ... I came here from Venezuela. We had to walk up across Mexico. It was a long trip, and at the end, I had to jump on 'The Beast.'"
"The Beast," the migrant explained, "is a train that you jump on while it is moving. And two men lost their legs while we tried. I don't know where I'm going or where any of us are going — we all want to stay here in Manhattan."
Over 5,800 migrants arrived in New York City just last week alone, Adams said — this comes, he added, on top of more than 60,000 who came here last spring.
On Sunday, Suffolk County officials announced plans to legally oppose the busing of migrants from the city. At the same time, an Onondaga County town supervisor threatened to file a restraining order against New York City to prevent an influx, as reported by CNY Central. The developments reveal a growing and contentious debate surrounding the arrival of migrants and moving them to other counties throughout New York.