Fed up New York City businesses say they have had more than enough of the migrant crisis.
The New York Post reported many businesses say they have taken a financial hit due to families sprawled out on sidewalks, grown men fighting and mini-tent cities.
Migrant children have been seen playing outside businesses and riding scooters and bikes up and down sidewalks dodging pedestrians as they go. And, in just the past month, the Post has found asylum seekers sitting in camp chairs on the sidewalk outside the Roosevelt Hotel shelter in Midtown.
"It has really, really, really affected us," said George Boahene, manager of SAYKI Menswear. "This is not a residential area; this is a business area."
The situation outside the suit store, which operates on the ground level of the Roosevelt, has become so bad, Boahene worries he will be out of a job if the chaos continues.
"I am scared a little bit because this is not the way it's supposed to be," he said of the current state of business. On a normal Friday, Boahene said, the store would usually have "5,000 customers or orders" — but it has dwindled to "less than 500."
"And I'm scared because if my boss sees the situation, that business is not going up, he's going to close the store. And then I don't have a job," he said.
New York City plans to hand out fliers at the southern border, warning migrants there is "no guarantee" they will receive help if they come there, the BBC reported.
Mayor Eric Adams, in announcing the plan, maintains the city cannot handle any more migrants since it has taken in 90,000 since April last year.
"We have no more room," he said.
Migrants have been transported by some Republican-led states to Democrat-run areas in protest at border policies.
But Adams' plan appears too late to ease the growing frustration of New Yorkers.
"It's very bad. It's terrible. It's a bad image for business," the owner of a jewelry store near the Roosevelt said of the crowds of migrants. "People don't want to come around here, and I don't blame them.
"In the morning, it's messy — cans, food, everything. We have to clean it up. They sit in front of the entrance and I have to ask them to move. They park their scooters and bicycles in front of our business. They don't care."
Things turned violent outside the Lincoln Correctional Facility in Harlem, according to the Post. The newspaper reported a group of migrants threw objects at passersby before beating up two men who tried to stop it, according to police and witnesses. One New Yorker, who attempted to step in, was hospitalized after the migrants shoved him through a glass door of a nearby apartment building entrance.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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