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NYPD officers clear migrant encampment at Midtown hotel
By
Gwynne Hogan
Published Feb 1, 2023
Modified Feb 1, 2023
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Courtesy Derrick Demaria
By
Gwynne Hogan
Published Feb 1, 2023
Modified Feb 1, 2023
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Police and sanitation workers cleared out the sidewalk encampment where a group of asylum seekers had been camping out for three days in protest of the city’s effort to relocate them to a 1,000-bed shelter at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
An NYPD spokesperson confirmed police were at the scene, but didn’t provide further information about the sweep. There were no arrests, a department spokesperson said.
“They kicked us out of there like dogs,” said Ivan Pereria in Spanish, reached over the phone shortly after the occurred sweep Wednesday night. “The police took the suitcases, people dispersed.”
He said he was getting warm at an activist’s apartment nearby, unsure where he’d spend the rest of the night.
“We ran from there,” said Anthony Luna, in Spanish, another migrant who spoke to Gothamist over the phone on Wednesday night. “We’re thinking what we can do now. We have to go somewhere else.”
Activists on the scene said NYPD’s Strategic Response Group – the controversial paramilitary unit deployed heavily during the protests of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd – had arrived around 8 p.m.
Video and photos taken by activists at the scene showed sanitation workers tossing suitcases into a DSNY dumpster and police removing e-bikes from racks and scaffolding outside the hotel.
The city Sanitation Department referred all questions to City Hall.
The encampment had grown to several dozen since Sunday evening, when a handful of migrants returned from the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, asking to be let back into the Watson Hotel, where they had been staying. They said the 1,000-bed shelter in Brooklyn was cold, with outdoor showers and no privacy. Others who were told to leave the Watson throughout the week joined the men camping outside, rather than go to the Brooklyn facility.
The city's Office of Immigrant Affairs had tweeted that some migrants had agreed earlier in the day to leave the encampment outside the Watson Hotel for the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
Mayor Eric Adams blamed “agitators,” for the protest, and said while several dozen men were refusing to go to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, hundreds of others had moved without fuss.
A spokesman for the mayor said most of the migrants decided to go to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, while six chose to be “reticketed“ to meet friends or family in other cities and the remaining chose to go their own ways. He also said that “the only items discarded were those on the street.“
“We are grateful that almost all single men who were staying at the Watson Hotel have chosen to heed our calls and come inside from the frigid temperatures tonight,” mayoral spokesman Fabien Levy told Gothamist. “The single men who were staying at the Watson have now all either chosen to transfer to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal — a humanitarian relief center that multiple elected officials today called a ‘warm’ location — or decided to leave our care by connecting with friends, family, or other networks.”
This story has been updated to include comment from the mayor’s spokesman.
Catalina Gonella contributed reporting.
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Gwynne Hogan
Gwynne Hogan is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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