A video provided to Breitbart Texas by a Venezuelan migrant living in New York City shows hundreds of mostly male migrants staged outside a New York City-funded migrant shelter on Tuesday afternoon. The migrants said hundreds were evicted from the shelter after a fire alarm sounded, forcing the migrants to vacate the building in the Long Island City section of Queens.
The migrants can be seen moving around the building as a fire truck arrives. One migrant awaiting the disposition of his asylum case filmed the event while narrating and complained about personal property left inside the building. According to the source, several hundred migrants were offered bussing to alternative sites, including a soft-sided congregant migrant shelter. Others, the source says, were taken to a re-ticketing center in East Village and offered pre-paid airfare out of the city to a destination of their choice.
The opening of the shelter, located at Austell Place in Long Island City, was announced by New York City Mayor Eric Adams on September 6. At a press event on that date, Adams told reporters:
With an average of more than 10,000 asylum seekers arriving in our city every month and nearly 60,000 migrants currently in our care, New York City has stepped up to meet the challenge of this humanitarian crisis — but we need additional support to keep pace, the transition of this site into a new humanitarian relief center at Austell Place is an important next step in our efforts to do our part, but, as we’ve said month after month, only more support from our state and federal partners and real policy change in Washington will truly address this crisis.
According to Adams, the city has already spent $1.45 billion on migrant services in 2023 and estimates future costs through July 2025 to reach $12 billion to provide services to the migrants arriving in New York City.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, a major draw, according to recently arrived migrants, is the lucrative benefits provided by the city. One migrant Breitbart Texas spoke to currently receives health, vision, and dental insurance with no premiums or deductibles. Danny, who has left the city’s shelter system, easily found employment with a cleaning company despite having no legal authorization to work.
Breitbart Texas spoke to Danny regarding the latest evictions on Tuesday. Danny believes the prepaid plane tickets offered by the city to other destinations will have little impact on the situation as many of the migrants have no family support structure in the United States.
He added, “They are not going anywhere — like me — they left everything behind to get here. They are certainly not going back to Venezuela on their own, for what?”
Breitbart Texas reached out to Mayor Eric Adams’ office and the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) for comment on the matter. A spokesperson for FDNY would neither confirm nor deny the allegations made by the migrants regarding the fire response to the shelter on Tuesday. The spokesperson’s response was limited to “City Hall is handling information regarding migrants.”
Angel Gotlieb, Communications Coordinator for the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, has received Breitbart Texas’ request for information but has not responded as of press time.
The continued flow of migrants across the southwest border indicates the situation facing New York City and other large metropolitan areas across the country will likely worsen. Unofficial apprehension reports reviewed by Breitbart Texas show the Border Patrol arrested 187,000 migrants crossing the U.S./Mexico border in October.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
