Tag: Immigration

Migrants bused into New York City have been walking through the streets of a Staten Island neighborhood asking for food, clothes and work after they were put up in hotels there.

The migrants — many not ready for the colder temperatures of the Big Apple — are staying at a property in Travis-Chelsea that includes the Staten Island Inn, Holiday Inn, and Fairfield Inn and Suites Marriott, sources and workers told the Post.

The Staten Island Inn is completely booked with migrants, one worker claimed. The Holiday Inn Express was expecting another drop-off at some point Saturday night.

One migrant, Geraldine Silva, told The Post outside of the Inn that she arrived there about a week ago after she was bussed from El Paso. The Venezuelan native was wearing only a t-shirt, sweatpants and flip flops on a night when temperatures dropped into the 40s.

“We do not have clothing and are not eating well. We need a place to work,” Silva, 31, told The Post.

“We are waiting for clothes,” the mother said, shivering beside a handful of kids and other migrants.

A Holiday Inn employee said the migrants first arrived a week ago.

“[The hotel management] didn’t tell anyone anything. They weren’t taking any reservations … and people were bugging out,” the worker said. “The front desk has to do the dirty work. They had to call them and tell them we are closed. We sold out to the city. I guess the city owns the building.”

“Why do we have 50,000 people when you could have given them to a different state….we are 10 minutes from New Jersey. There is nothing here,” he fumed.

“There is no laundry service here. There is nothing. There is nothing for them to shop, for them to do their laundry. I have no idea how they are going to do it,” he said about the neighborhood, a middle class enclave of Staten Island.

The Marriot is expected to house incoming migrants soon as well, he added.

A worker, who said he works for a company called Garner, was on scene handing out paperwork to migrants. He said he has worked at various migrant hotels throughout the city but Saturday was his first day at the Staten Island site.

“We are here to get them started. To get them in their room. We are here to make sure they get where they need to fill out their paperwork,” the worker told The Post.

“We just make sure they fill out their paperwork and then the state takes over.”

The sudden influx of migrants has overwhelmed local residents, who said the newcomers have been going door-to-door knocking on homes, asking for clothes and other necessities.

Terrence Jones, a Staten Island resident and business owner, said he was caught off guard when some migrants rang his doorbell multiple times.

“They were speaking Spanish. I just said I only speak English. It was like three times,” Jones, 56, told The Post.

He said one person was wrapped up in a blanket.

“They were underdressed – had slippers on, a Red Cross blanket. I thought it was weird.”

Andrew Wilkes, a computer programmer who also lives near the hotels, also received multiple knocks on his door.

 “I’ve had it happen three times. The fourth time was today and [a woman] handed me a paper” identifying herself as a migrant, he said.

“They were dressed for 100-degree weather,” he said, also stressing their lack of warm clothing. 

He said his wife was looking for any extra clothes she had around their home to donate.

“What gets me is desperate people do desperate things. That’s what worries me,” he added.

“It’s not the right thing to do for the neighborhood, to overload it. Where are they going to go to school? There’s only one school in the neighborhood.”

Sebastian Bongiovani, 51, co- owner of Verde’s Pizza and Pasta House, has provided free food to the migrants since they arrived. He said the neighborhood was never informed that the busloads would be coming.

“What we’ve seen is pregnant women, little children starving,” he said. He said he’s watched the famished migrants wolf down a whole slice of pizza “in a second.”

“What I’ve experienced is people come to my [pizzeria] and ask for food. I tell them to come back at the end of the day. [A man] came back with his pregnant wife and five or six kids,” Bongiovani said.

“At the end of the day these people are just hungry. It’s a good neighborhood but they don’t seem to have a plan,” he added.

“People walking around hungry is f—ing not good,” he said, noting that migrants had allegedly stolen food off the shelves of a nearby store.

Bongiovani was planning on dropping off food Saturday night to someone at the hotel. He said he was “touched” after one migrant woman came back the next day to thank him for a large amount of free food.

Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency Friday over the deluge of migrants into the Big Apple, calling it “unsustainable.” He warned that the sudden influx is pushing the city’s shelter population to an all-time high and will cost taxpayers $1 billion for housing and social services.