Regarding “Two slays in 2 days,” (April 12), New York’s obscene no-bail “reforms” and the irresponsible judges who “enforce” them are directly responsible for two more murders in the city.
Messiah Nantwi was arrested in February 2021 for allegedly shooting at police and initially held without bail.
Over the prosecution’s objections, his bail was reduced to $300,000, which his family met by posting a $30,000 bond.
Last weekend, video shows that Nantwi allegedly shot and killed a man in a Harlem smoke shop after reportedly killing another on a Manhattan street.
No matter what Assemblyman Carl Heastie and Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins say, this is blood on their hands.
Marc E. Kasowitz
Manhattan
Shelter squabble
Thank you for once again reporting about the failed policies of the de Blasio administration that have been carried forward by Mayor Eric Adams (“Storm from the shelters,” April 9).
No residential New York City neighborhood should be inundated by homeless.
While “safe havens” can work on a smaller scale, it is an inappropriate model for New York City.
With the uptick in crime committed by homeless mentally ill, it’s not a good idea to place folks in a stimulating environment in what is a cultural and economic engine in the city.
This is not a NIMBY issue. It’s common sense.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of acres in the state where former state schools and hospitals were once situated.
Create a mini-community on these unused acres with social and health services available.
One can use renovated buildings, tiny houses, trailers or modular units for that purpose.
Please start thinking differently, or we will continue on this long, downward and dangerous road.
Laura Logue Rood
Manhattan
Stepmom horror
The evil stepmom who placed two children in a freezing garage was sentenced to 25 to life (“Rot, evil stepmom,” April 12).
One of the boys, an autistic 8-year-old, died.
How any human being could do that is just beyond understanding.
The judge remarked at the sentencing that it’s too bad there was no garage at the prison.
Their argument as to when life begins — whether it’s after 15 weeks, 12 weeks or at conception — is based on faith rather than scientific fact.
Their claim that they are concerned with the right to life of the unborn raises the question: Where is their concern for the health and well-being of the already born?
The argument over the “abortion pill” proves that point.
The “pill” has been shown to be safe and effective for decades.
They are, in effect, attempting to impose their religious beliefs on other Americans.
Addressing each and every anti-abortion argument when raised is a waste of time and energy.
Irving Gelb
North Bergen, NJ
Stern’s turn
Howard Stern is a washed-up, leftist big-mouth (“Stern spanks Kid,” April 12).
It seems like during COVID, he transitioned from kind of an edgy guy to a typical, full-blown leftist and paranoid millionaire hypocrite.
He is insulated by his obscene wealth and is clueless about the decline of this country.
Raymond Fontana
Westbrook, Conn.
Want to weigh in on today’s stories? Send your thoughts (along with your full name and city of residence) to letters@nypost.com. Letters are subject to editing for clarity, length, accuracy and style.
Give me your tired, your poor, your smuggled masses.
New York City’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is “fully booked through October 2032” for appointments to process migrants released at the southern border, according to an official document exclusively reviewed by The Post — making the Big Apple the ideal destination for migrants with dubious asylum claims and causing a massive headache to those with valid ones.
The backlog means that migrants may have to wait almost a decade just to enter the immigration court process — which is beset by further delays stretching out years, sources said.
“If you want to stay here and fight your case for 12 years [and] if you do your research or the cartels do their research… that’s actually pretty clever,” said Thomas Homan, the acting ICE director from January 2017 through June 2018.
The Biden administration released into the US 802,396 non-citizens who were apprehended after illegally crossing the Southwest border in the 23-month period from late March 2021 through Feb. 13, according to a Feb. 18 document on ICE letterhead.
Historically, migrants who illegally crossed the southern border with asylum claims were issued a Notice to Appear (NTA) in immigration court.
But to cope with a record-breaking wave of new arrivals, the Biden administration in early 2021 added a new step and issued migrants a Notice to Report (NTR) to the ICE office near their final destination to get placed into court proceedings.
Authorities stopped issuing NTRs in late 2021 and imposed the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) “parole” program on most migrants released at the border, who generally submit to GPS tracking or reporting on a smartphone app.
802,396 non-citizens were released after being apprehended after illegally crossing the border.Getty Images
The document reviewed by The Post lists the “Top 10 Parole/NTR Appointment Backlog Locations” and said that as of Feb. 13, there were 39,216 non-citizens with appointments at ICE’s New York City office — making it the most clogged jurisdiction in the country.
The second-most backlogged ICE office is in Jacksonville, Fla., which was “mostly booked” for appointments through June 2028 with 2,686 migrants in line.
Third-place Miramar, Fla., is “fully booked” through January 2028 with 24,747 migrants who have appointments.
Rounding out the top 10 were offices in Atlanta (“mostly booked” through January 2027); San Antonio (“fully booked” through February 2027); Mount Laurel, NJ (“fuly booked” through May 2026); Chicago (“mostly booked” through February 2026), Baltimore (“mostly booked through” January 2026), Milwaukee (“fully booked” through February 2026) and Indianapolis (“fully booked” through January 2026).
Victor Rodriguez, 23, who arrived in the US from Venezuela in late 2022, told The Post he has an appointment date in 2025.
“Before coming I knew it was going to be complicated, but not this complicated,” said Rodriguez, whose home country is roiled by political oppression and an economic tailspin under the authoritarian socialist leader Nicolas Maduro. “I didn’t know it would take this long.”
Rodriguez is staying at the New York Manhattan Hotel near the Empire State Building and said he even considered moving somewhere with a shorter wait before deciding “we’ve come all this way, we might as well wait it out.”
Jhony Amagua, 28, of Ecuador arrived in late January and told The Post he was issued an appointment date for 2031.
42.3% of released migrants have not checked in with an ICE field office.Getty Images
Amagua, who is living with his wife and two young children at the same Midtown hotel as Rodriguez, said he’s “completely lost and has no idea what to do” and that when he asked for an earlier date was told, “No, your appointment date is the one on the original paper.”
ICE, given more than a week to comment by The Post, neither disputed the accuracy of the reported backlog figure nor contradicted sources’ contention about what it meant.
Former Virginia-based immigration judge Matt O’Brien says he’s seen migrants strategically “forum-shop” to get their case in a certain jurisdiction, based either on the anticipation of a speedy hearing or a desire for a wait that may stretch into the distant future.
“The problem is significantly worse with people trying to get in courts where everything is delayed so that they can get work authorization and basically hang out and wait for the next amnesty,” said O’Brien, who was an immigration judge from 2020 through 2022 after working at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Victor Rodriguez arrived in the US from Venezuela in late 2022 and doesn’t have an appointment date until 2025.Matthew McDermott
“I think what [the Biden administration is] doing is they’re trying to flood the country with people who are not going to be able to get in front of a court,” O’Brien said. “I think they’re going to try and force legislative amnesty making the same claim that they always do, which is, ‘we don’t have the resources or the political will to deport this many people.’”
“The major problem with all of this is that 99% of these people don’t have a valid asylum claim,” added O’Brien. “[The asylum process] is designed to protect people from persecution, primarily at the hands of a government or in certain limited circumstances at the hands of parties that government is unable or unwilling to control.”
Andrew Arthur, who served eight years as an immigration judge in Pennsylvania, said that the appointment backlog reflects the tip of an iceberg.
“That means that there are tens of thousands of people with NTRs who were released on ‘Alternatives to Detention’ who have not been scheduled to show up at an ICE office for an NTA, and 700,000-plus of aliens who were paroled with ATD who are in the same situation,” said Arthur, who is now a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.
“I can assume that the New York City office only has so many ‘call-in’ slots for NTAs for aliens released with NTRs and on parole, and that it has effectively filled those slots for the next decade,” Arthur said.
When migrants are released at the border, they’re supposed to check in with an ICE field office within 60 days to begin the process of having their claims reviewed, but the documents reviewed by The Post showed that just 43.6% have done so within 60 days, with 14% checking in later than 60 days.
Jhony Amagua was issued an appointment date for 2031.Matthew McDermott
Another 42.3% of released migrants — or 339,692 people — had not checked in, with most of them blowing past the timeframe, though about 50,000 still had yet to reach their 60-day deadline.
A frequently asked questions section on ICE’s website says that the more than 665,000 released with Alternatives to Detention as of Feb. 13 won’t have to worry about appointment backlogs because their status won’t be impacted by delays.
“If you were released on Parole and Conditions to Detention (ATD), there is a parole timeframe on your paperwork,” the ICE website says. “To meet the requirements of your release, book the next available check-in appointment – even if it [is] outside of the initial parole timeframe.”
A Government Accountability Office report in September detailed issues that impede efficient issuing of court dates, including the fact that authorities lack an address for a majority of released migrants, ruling out mailed court summons.
63% of asylum claims were turned down in 2021.Getty Images
Once migrants actually get before a judge, most asylum claims are denied — with 63% of claims turned down in fiscal 2021 and 71% of them failing in 2020.
The ICE office backlog accompanies the massive backlog for New York’s immigration court, which has roughly 194,000 pending cases statewide. There are more than 2 million pending cases nationwide.
New York’s immigration courts are among the most-delayed in the country, with the average case pending for 840 days as of January — or nearly 2.5 years, according to Syracuse University data.
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People awaiting asylum rulings can get US work permits, though they must wait 150 days followed by an additional 180 days of delay through no fault of their own, according to O’Brien, who now works as director of investigations at the Immigration Reform Law Institute.
New York City has been swamped by shipments of migrants from other jurisdictions — most notably from Texas, where GOP Gov. Greg Abbott dispatched 4,900 migrants from Aug. 5 through Dec. 29 in protest of Biden administration policies and a city policy against cooperating with immigration authorities.
Homan, the former ICE director, said that the delays come with a human cost for migrants — many of whom will start families and buy property as they await their day in court.
“They’ll have a child or two. Since you’re born here, they’re US citizens. They may buy a house, they may start a small business, then when they finally get a hearing from a judge, they say they’re not qualified and you are ordered deported,” Homan said. “Then everybody’s freaking out because you’re separating parents from the US citizen children.”
Congressional Republicans have vented about the Biden administration’s decision to release migrants at the border without court dates, arguing that doing so is illegal and allows for many migrants to fall through the cracks.
Undocumented immigrants wait in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center after they were arrested on April 11, 2018.Getty Images
“While current statutory and regulatory guidance requires migrants to be issued an NTA and placed into removal proceedings immediately upon release from CBP custody, the notice to report process could allow migrants to abscond from DHS before they are issued an NTA and placed into removal proceedings,” a letter sent by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) noted in 2021.
ICE said in a statement that it was “working to address current processing delays at some field offices.”
The New York City ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations office “has capacity to see approximately 400-600 noncitizens a day on average, depending on the complexity of each case,” the agency said, though that figure can include non-parole/notice to report cases.
“ERO NYC makes every attempt to identify and provide expedited attention to noncitizens who are elderly, pregnant, have medical conditions, and those with young children,” ICE said.
When The Post visited the ICE processing office at 26 Federal Plaza on Friday, a female worker said that the number of migrants seen is limited to 500 each day.
“Five hundred is the cutoff,” she said. “There’s way more than that. We don’t get a break here. It’s nonstop. They’re camping out [at] maybe 3, 4 o’clock in the morning because they know that once it gets to 500, that’s it.”
A security guard in the office added that lines of migrants for the office “start at Lafayette and Worth [streets] and the line has gone all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge.”
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers process detained undocumented immigrants on April 11, 2018.Getty Images
“It started in the summer with people coming and coming,” he added. “Back then, they used to come and go to the window and that’s it. Now, it’s just first come, first serve. Your best shot is to come in the early mornings.”
An ICE official insisted to The Post that the switch from issuing NTRs to enrolling migrants in the ATD programs “demonstrates a rigorous enforcement process that is effective and includes accountability measures to require noncitizens to report to ICE for issuance of an NTA and continue through the formal immigration process.”
The scale of the migrant crisis reportedly has prompted the Biden administration to consider restoring Trump-era policies to deter illegal border crossings.
The New York Times reported this month that officials are considering detaining migrant families after the Title 42 COVID-19 border expulsion policy ends around May 11. Reuters reported last month that the Biden administration may require migrants passing through Mexico to first seek asylum there and to book an appointment before coming to the border — making moves toward restoring the Trump-era “remain in Mexico” policy that Biden ended.
The Issue: The Post report that it’s costing taxpayers $4.6 million to provide for migrants in New York City.
The Post reports that New York City is paying $4.6 million per day to provide for illegal immigrants sent to New York from the southern border (“$4.6 million a day,” March 4).
This stat is staggering, and requires urgent intervention before we go broke.
Our state legislators and president are completely responsible for the crisis we face today. It was caused by implementing their radical, narrow- minded agendas.
As if the economic crisis isn’t bad enough, we’re in the midst of a crime wave, increased homelessness, increased gun violence and a failed public school system — to name a few.
I’m certain $32 million per week could help alleviate the suffering of many Americans impacted by these crises.
J.P. Norris
Southold
This is getting crazy. $4.6 million a day comes to more than $1.6 billion a year.
Imagine what could be done for the homeless in New York with that much money. Imagine that money going to New York’s infrastructure.
Biden is responsible for this. His open-border policy is bringing this country to its knees.
Charlie Honadel
Venice, Fla.
I can barely think or write straight — $4.6 million a day to house and feed illegal immigrants. There are thousands of homeless Americans sleeping on park benches, many of them veterans, and we give these illegal immigrants free hotel rooms and three squares a day — and don’t forget free medical care.
This is so disgusting and surreal. I wish I could afford to retire and move somewhere else. America is not the greatest anymore.
Pete Sulizcki
Milford, Conn.
This is another reason to flee the once-greatest city in the world.
Liberal New York City and New York state are decaying at a very fast rate. Now we see that $4.6 million a day of taxpayer money is going to feed and house 30,000 illegal migrants living better than New York’s poor and homeless veterans.
It’s time for the failed mayor and governor to go to the White House and tell Biden to cease and desist his open-border policies, or he’ll lose even New York’s bleeding-heart liberal voters.
Instead of asking for money, tell Biden New York’s borders are closed to unvetted illegal immigrants.
J.R. Cummings
Manhattan
The Issue: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s late or non-payment of many of her expenses for the Met Gala.
So the dress that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore to the Met Gala should have said: “Tax the rich, but I don’t have to pay” (“AOC: Tax The Rich [But Stiff The Help],” Nicole Gelinas, March 6).
Does it really surprise anyone that AOC is the poster child for political hypocrisy? I just wish her constituents would wake up.
Amy Hendel
Manhattan
It’s always difficult to realize you have been played for a fool and your idol has feet of clay — albeit beautifully shod in designer shoes.
Perhaps the signs of AOC’s hypocrisy can now be acknowledged by those who supported this fraudster.
From the crocodile tears at the border (but only when she knew the camera was pointing her way) to her despicable elitist attitude toward the little people in this Met Gala scandal, she exemplifies a true communist wannabe.
The politicians who push socialism are not interested in helping you. They will live like kings, and you will live like a pauper.
Sharon Wylie
Westport, Conn.
Want to weigh in on today’s stories? Send your thoughts (along with your full name and city of residence) to letters@nypost.com. Letters are subject to editing for clarity, length, accuracy and style.
That obscene figure is how much some 30,000 illegal immigrants cost New York City, per Mayor Adams’ emergency management honcho Zach Iscol.
The ultimate two-year tab is projected to exceed $4 billion. It already hit $500 million in mid-February.
And there’s every reason to think they’ll keep coming.
The city has plenty of other places to spend $4.6 million a day: That’s $1.7 billion a year, after all. At some point it’ll have to rethink its promises on “welcoming migrants.”
Shouldn’t the folks irate about reduced public-library hours in Brooklyn be asking questions about putting up migrants in luxe hotels?
The Biden administration has sent $8 million to help fix the migrant problem in New York City.Getty Images
Certainly, Gotham simply can’t absorb this fiscal burden without major federal help. But Team Biden has so far sent only a measly $8 million.
Which is outrageous: it’s President Biden who created this crisis. From the first day of his administration (actually, before!), he worked to wreck border security via “wave them in” policies and implicit promises of eventual de facto citizenship.
Now we see the fruits. And what is Biden’s response?
Nothing. He shills his joke of a “comprehensive immigration reform” plan, which would “fix” the issue by effectively legalizing the border-crossers.
Mayor Eric Adams delivers remarks at his annual Interfaith Breakfast at the New York Public Library.Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock
But he does nothing substantive on enforcement, and offers less than crumbs to help the cities the influx is overwhelming.
What’s the plan here? To hope things somehow work out on their own? To wait until after his putative re-election before coming across?
Or will he just stick the Big Apple with a big bill? Thinking the Democratic city will just vote for him anyway? How cynical.
Biden’s indifference here is no less galling just because it’s so typical of him.
But the vast human cost he’s imposing on this front makes it beyond sickening.
The Biden administration published a new immigration rule Tuesday that would dramatically shake up the current system and disqualify migrants who illegally cross into the US from applying for asylum.
US Customs and Border Protection officers have been stretched to their limits by the number of migrants who are showing up at the southern border — with a record-setting 2.4 million encounters in 2022.
The new rule would instead require asylum-seekers to apply for protection in any country they travel through before they arrive in the US.
The rule is expected to take effect in May, just before pandemic-era restriction Title 42 is expected to end and last two years, according to the Washington Post.
Asylum seekers lined up outside of El Paso, Texas, hoping to gain entrance to the US.James Keivom
The government’s document announcing the rule states it is being issued “in anticipation of a potential surge in migration at the southwest border of the United States” when Title 42 ends.
Title 42 is a Trump-era COVID-19 policy the federal government has used to eject thousands of migrants back over the border to Mexico. The Biden administration has announced all pandemic policies will expire on May 11.
Under the new rule, migrants would become ineligible for asylum if they enter the country illegally — as they have been doing for the last two years since Biden has been in office — creating what city officials at the border have called an unsustainable crisis in their communities.
Migrants who claimed asylum and passed a security clearance were released into the streets of El Paso.James Keivom
Chief Patrol Agent for the Tucson, Ariz., border sector John Modlin previously described how migrant apprehensions had increased in the last two years, telling a house oversight committee earlier this month: “In 2020, our total encounters were 66,000. That figure nearly tripled in 2021, and then quadrupled last year. We closed last year, 2022, with over 250,000 encounters in Tucson.”
In December, El Paso, Texas, declared a state of emergency as around 2,700 migrants flooded the city per day and surrendered to Border Patrol agents seeking asylum. Those who claimed fear for their lives if they returned to their country were released into the city while their cases play out in court — as is required by US laws.
President Joe Biden walks along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 8, 2023.AP
As part of the new policy, migrants would be required to ask for refuge in any other country they stepped foot in when they left their home country. Those who failed to do would be immediately deported without going through an appeals process.
Immigrant advocates, such as the ACLU, have slammed this new policy, claiming it violates long-established laws that guarantee the right to claim asylum to anyone on US soil, regardless of how they got there.
At its peak in December, hundreds of migrants slept on the streets of El Paso, unable to get out of the west Texas city to their final destinations in cities across America.James Keivom
“Critically, our courts have long recognized that a person’s decision not to seek asylum while in transit to the US has no bearing on their need for protection,” the organization said.
The Biden rule has also been denounced by immigrant advocates as merely “rebranded Trump-era policies.”
“With the [Biden] administration, people really think immigration did change, but in reality, it’s worse,” said Crystal Sandoval of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center told The Post. “It’s just rebranding, but they are the same policies we saw under [President] Trump.”
President Trump had previously enacted a “safe third country” rule in 2019 which required asylum seekers to apply for refuge in the first stable territory they came to after leaving their home country but it was struck down in court after numerous challenges.
Two top Republican congresswomen from New York are demanding that the Biden administration answer questions about secretly transporting migrants across the US — after dozens of Colombian immigrants recently arrived in the small upstate community of Watertown.
“We write following reports that your administration is actively settling migrants in Upstate New York communities,” upstate Reps. Claudia Tenney and Elise Stefanik — the number three Republican in the US House of Representatives — wrote in a Wednesday letter obtained by The Post.
GOP Congressmen Nick Langworthy, Michael Lawler and Marc Molinaro also signed the message.
Most of the migrants traveled to Jamestown on their own after learning about the safety of the city from fellow border-crossers in El Paso, Texas, several had previously told The Post.
But leaders of the city — which only has a reported population of 28,393 people — are worried that the influx of immigrants will quickly overwhelm Jamestown’s local services and infrastructure, especially because neither the migrants nor the city has received additional state or federal aid.
Over 30 migrants have been living in Jamestown, a city in Upstate New York, since late last year. Dan Cappellazzo
Several Colombian migrants said they landed in Jamestown after learning about its safety from fellow border-crossers in El Paso. Dan Cappellazzo
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Jamestown leaders worry that the small city doesn’t have the resources to support the migrant population. Dan Cappellazzo
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“[W]e wish to express our outrage at the secrecy with which your administration has and continues to carry out these national relocation operations,” the lawmakers wrote. “This unprecedented influx of migrants into the United States is an obvious sign of your administration’s failed policies at the Southern Border.”
Tenney and Stefanik submitted a list of six demands:
The number of illegal migrants that were apprehended at the Southern border and relocated to New York by the government since January 2021;
A full list of which New York counties and municipalities the migrants were sent to and which areas can expect migrants to be sent to in the future;
Documentation proving executive branch agencies notified New York those counties, municipalities and local law enforcement that migrants would be coming, or an explanation of why the government chose not to do so;
Information on how the White House is monitoring the status and locations of the migrants they’ve relocated since January 2021;
The whereabouts of every migrant that has been relocated by the government to New York State since January 2021; and
A promise that the Biden administration will commit to notifying Tenney and Stefanik’s offices and local officials whenever illegal migrants are relocated to the state.
The pols requested a response from the White House by the end of the month and threatened to take action against the administration if they failed to do so, “including but not limited to withholding additional federal funding.”
“Rather than shifting the burden to the small communities we represent, that are not equipped to handle the influx, the answer is to secure the border,” they said.
Rep. Claudia Tenney penned the letter demanding information from the Biden administration over the migrant influx in New York State. Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
Rep. Elise Stefanik had sent the White House a letter last year demanding that the government stop sending migrants to the Empire State. AP
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The pols threatened to hold President Biden accountable if he doesn’t reply to their requests. AFP via Getty Images
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“Already, your current policies have created a humanitarian and national security catastrophe which undermines the rule of law and empowers human traffickers and criminal gangs.”
The White House did not return an immediate request for comment.
The crisis has only accelerated in the past year, especially in New York City.
At least 41,000 migrants have arrived in the Big Apple from the southern border since the spring, according to City Hall.
Mayor Eric Adams has said that housing and providing services to incoming migrants may cost the Big Apple as much as $2 billion as the city planned to open a sixth emergency shelter in Midtown for migrants.
US Border Patrol rounded up illegal migrants camped out on streets near a Catholic church in El Paso, Texas on Tuesday, the agency confirmed to The Post.
Federal agents continued checking migrants on the streets of the border town throughout Wednesday and took any who were not authorized asylum seekers into custody.
An eyewitness said: “They were asking people across from the church where many of them are staying for documents. If they produced them, they let them go. If not, they took them in.”
Sources said dozens were arrested by border agents and most likely expelled to Mexico.
Discarded belongings following US Border Patrol’s raid on migrants sleeping on the streets of El Paso.James Keivom for NY PostA migrant family’s makeshift home of sheets and blankets, with all their possessions piled up next to itJames Keivom for NY Post
As Border Patrol continued taking migrants into custody Wednesday, church volunteers hurriedly ushered people onto its property and out of the reach from agents, as houses of worship are considered off limits.
“I need you to take your child, and come with me,” said a volunteer to a group of migrants, adding, “There are more vans coming to take you away.”
A pregnant migrant woman sobbed as she rushed to squeeze into a long, narrow gated area with others who are in the US illegally.
Migrants line the sidewalk outside Sacred Heart church in El Paso, Texas.James Keivom for NY Post
“There’s no space left inside the church — it’s filled with women and children, so we’re just standing out here and could be deported at anytime. All we can do is run if they try to get us,” a Venezuelan migrant, who only wanted to be identified as Johnny because he is in the US illegally, told The Post.
El Paso has seen an increase in migrant crossings since the last week of December when Title 42 was extended, allowing the US to keep asylum-seekers from certain countries out of the US.
The Post witnessed a number of migrants missing from spots where they had been sleeping near the house of worship Wednesday morning. A Honduran couple with several young children were gone, their few belongings discarded on the sidewalk.
Sacred Heart Catholic Church opened its doors to migrants at the end of December.James Keivom for NY PostMigrant tents in the El Paso streets, with their inhabitants wrapped up against the coldJames Keivom for NY Post
Other migrants told The Post “immigration officials” plucked people off the streets at night as they were sleeping Tuesday night.
A statement from Border Patrol said patrolling the neighborhood is part of its regular enforcement strategy.
“In response to migrants evading apprehension, the United States Border Patrol has increased the number of agents patrolling the area,” the agency told The Post.
An alley between the church and its gym has become a place where many have camped out James Keivom for NY Post
Border Patrol checkpoints have become another focal point, as illegal immigrants are increasingly trying to leave West Texas by riding further into the country aboard commercial buses.
At least 16 commercial buses with 178 immigrants were stopped this weekend alone. Hundreds more have been apprehended at checkpoints in recent days.
The sixth largest city in Texas declared a state of emergency in December after being overwhelmed with migrants, both illegal and legal, who are escaping failing states south of Mexico since August.
Border Patrol Checkpoints are invaluable to our border security mission. The men & women of the #ElPaso sector work tirelessly to protect our Nation’s borders as they continue to intercept large #’s of migrants illegally in the U.S. & seize significant quantities of narcotics. pic.twitter.com/rHyNeHg1Hi
The city’s homeless shelters are so out of control that terrified residents say they’d be safer on the subways — or even in prison.
City records obtained by The Post documented nearly two dozen incidents of violence and other outrageous behavior during one week in mid-September — the same period when a despondent migrant mom hanged herself in one of the taxpayer-funded facilities.
The horrors included bloody beatings, unprovoked attacks, vicious domestic abuse and meaningless fights — several of which sent victims for hospital treatment of their injuries.
“I’ve been screamed at, threatened,” said Dominic, 30, an ex-con who lives at the infamous Bellevue Men’s Shelter in Manhattan. “I did five years in Sing Sing and felt safer there than I do here. I feel safer on the subways.”
Homeless shelter residents say they’d be safer on the subways or in prison.Paul Martinka
A fellow resident, 34-year-old Kenneth Foster, told The Post, “It’s like the zoo let the animals out of their cages.”
“Two nights ago, one guy showed me a knife … He was like, ‘F–k with me and I f–k with you,’ and I was like, ‘I ain’t f–king with you’ and we was cool, but that’s just how it is here,” he added.
“The only good thing about this place is the hospital’s next door, so if I get a knife in the back I can just walk to the ER.”
The Post used the city’s Freedom of Information Law to obtain 424 pages of official reports about 273 “critical incidents” that took place between Sept. 16 and 21.
On Sept. 18, in the middle of that period, a 32-year-old migrant woman was found by one of her two kids hanging from a shower rod by an electrical cord in the Hollis Family Shelter in Queens.
The incidents that were considered to pose a threat to “the safety and well-being of shelter residents and/or staff” include:
A man being attacked in his sleep and found with a bloody nose inside the shelter at the Holiday Inn Express at 153-70 South Conduit Avenue, Queens, around 11:50 p.m. on Sept. 17. The alleged attacker resisted arrest when cops arrived and was only subdued after being Tased twice.
A woman said she was threatened with a knife by a fellow resident of the Women’s Center at 427 W. 52nd St. in Manhattan when a fight erupted during a fire drill there around 11 a.m. on Sept. 19. The woman who allegedly brandished the knife was arrested after acting “aggressive toward the staff and the officers” who responded.
Surveillance cameras caught two staffers fighting inside the shelter at 1851 Phelan Place in The Bronx, around 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 21. Staffers found a man who was bleeding from the right side of his head and said his assailant — who fled the scene — had threatened him with a knife before bashing him with a “wet floor” sign.
Staffers burst into a room at a shelter in The Bronx and found a woman holding her son as they were being beaten by her partner at around 5:50 p.m. on Sept. 16. The assailant ran away, leaving the woman with a swollen face and the boy with a bruised forehead.
Two residents at 316 Beach 65th Street in Far Rockaway, Queens, were arrested after a fight erupted around 12:15 a.m. on Sept. 20, when one man accused the other of urinating and defecating on the floor of their communal bathroom.
A man who lives in the Queens shelter where the resident was attacked in his sleep said he recalled the incident.
Vincent, 40, added that he also left the shelter last year after the same thing happened to him.
“I was sleeping and my roommate assaulted me. Nothing was done about it and I felt safer on the street,” he said. “I left because they weren’t helping me. I stayed out in the street for a year.”
Vincent complained that the facility was “understaffed” and that “there’s not enough security.”
On Sept. 18, a 32-year-old migrant woman was found by one of her two kids hanging from a shower rod by an electrical cord in the Hollis Family Shelter in Queens.
“Every f–king night EMS is here. It’s either a fight or people OD’ing,” he said.
A security guard at the shelter declined to comment or take a message for the person in charge.
“I don’t even know who management is here. I just started last week so I’m not familiar with a lot of people,” the guard said.
The chair of the city council’s General Welfare Committee, which oversees the Department of Homeless Services, told The Post the reports documented a “horrible situation.”
“It’s pretty consistent with what we’re hearing from folks, specifically people who are living on the streets: that the shelter system is not safe enough for them,” said Councilmember Diana Ayala (D-Upper Manhattan, The Bronx).
In a statement, the Department of Social Services defended its efforts to “provide adequate security across the shelter system,” saying that it “continues to strengthen our reporting mechanisms to capture any instances that may impact the well-being of our clients.”
The department added: “Over-simplistic and misleading assumptions about the shelter system based on a week of incident reports misrepresent the actual work and system improvements that are happening on the ground.”
Despite the department’s assertions, statistics show that violence and death in the shelters is becoming more common, not less.
NY1 recently reported that the number of shelter residents who died citywide increased 58% between 2019 and 2021, while records also showed a rise in the numbers of fights, sex offenses and drug overdoses in shelters for single adults.
The number of shelter residents who died increased 58% between 2019 and 2021.Matthew McDermott
The Mayor’s Management Report from Sept. 8 also cited an unspecified “increase in fights/disputes as well as drug-related incidents, including overdoses, consistent with citywide and national trends” during the fiscal year that ended in June, compared to the same period in 2020-21.
Shelly Nortz, deputy executive director for policy at the Coalition for the Homeless, said the “best solution” would be providing people “a secure and private room of their own with prompt access to affordable permanent housing.”
“Overcrowding people in congregate settings for extended periods of time during a pandemic – often with shared bathrooms, little storage and unappetizing food – is bound to heighten tensions in local shelters,” she added.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
El Paso, Texas — Wearing baggy blue jeans and hoodies and looking scruffy and unkempt, the state’s elite undercover squad could easily be mistaken for the bedraggled smugglers they are trying to apprehend, or the migrants pouring over the southern border from Mexico.
These specially trained members of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety have perhaps the most dangerous job on the border, acting as double agents and facing certain death if their cover is blown.
Their mission is to blend in with the migrant hordes, identify and apprehend cartel members, human traffickers and drug dealers, as part of the DPS’ efforts to keep criminal elements from entering the US.
The unit is so secretive DPS officials refuse to say how many agents are part of the department, where they specifically operate or allow them to pose for photographs which would reveal their identity, due to concerns for their safety.
“We really can’t say anything,” said Matthew Mull, Major with the DPS’s Criminal Investigation Division in El Paso during The Post’s ride-along with DPS earlier this week.
Undercover agents from the CID division of the Texas DPS were present at a raid in El Paso witnessed by The Post on WednesdayJames KeivomCID agents would not allow The Post to photograph their faces for safety reasons James Keivom
Members of the CID worked alongside DPS’s pilots to provide them with coordinates to chase down a group of smugglers transporting more than a dozen migrants in an overloaded Jeep Wednesday.
A handful of CID agents in their jeans and hoodies swooped into a stash house and arrested two young smugglers.
The Post’s eyewitness reporter at the raid said: “We could not tell the difference between who were the migrants and who were the agents. It was only after they opened their coats that I saw their badges. None of them spoke.”
An infrared picture taken from a helicopter shows CID agents making a raid CID Special Investigations
The trooper who accompanied us said they were the elite team.
“They were grizzled, hard-beaten guys who looked like they had seen it all. Tough guys.”
Agents from the CID division of Texas DPS have to keep their identities hidden beacuse of their dangerous undercover work, often coming into contact with cartel members ALLISON DINNER/AFP via Getty Images
Agents for the CID are involved in numerous investigations and agencies on both sides of the border.
Their website states its “personnel collaborate with internal and external stakeholders from across the state and internationally to identify, investigate, disrupt, and/or dismantle drug trafficking, human trafficking, and criminal gang organizations.”
As well as tracking organized crime, a separate arm of the CID handles special investigations, while another offers surveillance, forensics and other support.
The CID agents offer a sharp contrast to their DPS counterparts, who wear tan uniforms and cowboy hats as well as shiny black boots.
Migrants amassed at the southern border James Keivom
“That’s just the way they like to dress,” Mull told The Post. “It’s typically the way they do business.”
The CID unit was begun during the Second World War and was then known as Criminal Law Enforcement. In 2009, when DPS underwent an overhaul, the unit was renamed with a focus on intelligence gathering and including a mentorship program for state troopers who can opt to train with the unit, which also investigates vehicle theft, Mull said.
Instead it proves two things: Biden keeps lying to the American people. And he is too afraid of his own political party to do what is necessary.
On the first point, the administration keeps claiming the border is under control, and that, as White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this month, “the president has done the work to deal with what we’re seeing at the border since day one.”
But Biden’s private tantrum shows that isn’t true. He understands what a problem it is, both for the country and as a political liability. Besides putting Vice President Harris in charge of the “root causes,” a portfolio she’s ignored, he hasn’t done anything to fix it. Every time Biden waves it away as “not a big deal,” he’s lying.
As for being mad over the “lack of solutions,” give us a break. There are plenty of solutions. The most obvious one is telling asylum seekers at the border that they are not allowed to come in. The law says they must apply for asylum in the first safe country they enter. Biden could make diplomatic deals with Mexico to stop the caravans. If the images on the news were people being turned away, how long before they stopped coming?
But these were all things that the Trump administration did, and Biden knows that left-wing activists control the Democratic Party and hate any sensible immigration plan. On his first day in office, in fact, Biden halted construction on the border wall, stopped deporting illegal immigrants and erased every deterrent we had.
He was then shocked, apparently, that migrants would rush the open border. According to the book, an adviser said, “It’s like, ‘How would you feel if you were me and these were the solutions you had?’ It’s the weight of the presidency, right?’”
It is the weight of the presidency, but Biden has made his choice. He knows what the solution to the southern border is, he just doesn’t want to implement it. He put the feelings of a group of progressive lawmakers over the needs of the American people.
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