New York City Mayor Eric Adams slept at a migrant facility in Brooklyn on the coldest night of 2023 to promote the new housing option after some migrants recently refused to leave a hotel.
“Spent the coldest night of the year at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal with ‘Homeless Hero’ and advocate Shams DaBaron & @AMEddieGibbs,” Adams posted to Twitter on Saturday. “Our brothers are being kept warm and the team working here is giving new meaning to the words ‘love thy neighbor.'”
The mayor’s post included video and photos of him at the facility, including showing him sleeping on a cot, dining with migrants and playing video games.
Adams said he chose the coldest night of 2023, when there was a low of 12 degrees in the city, to spend at the facility to show how warm and welcoming it is.
“What we saw is what we have seen since the beginning of this crisis: individuals who are grateful to the greatest city in the world for providing them the opportunity to work toward the American Dream. I’d like to be clear that the facilities at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal are providing the same services to asylum seekers as every other humanitarian relief center in the city, and the team at the terminal is giving new meaning to the words ‘love thy neighbor,’” Adams said, WABC reported.
Late last month, a group of migrants who were staying at the Watson Hotel in Midtown Manhattan free of charge refused to leave the hotel – and even protested by sleeping in the streets – after city officials said they would be housed at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
Some of the migrants did leave the hotel for the migrant facility in Brooklyn, while others refused to leave and rallied outside the building alongside migrant activists.
Adams said at the time that the housing in Brooklyn was hospitable, despite claims that there was a lack of heat and bathroom space at the facility.
“This weekend, we began the process of moving single adult men from the Watson Hotel to Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, as we transition the hotel to meet the large number of asylum-seeking families with children,” Adams said in a statement at the time.
“More than 42,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since last spring, and we continue to surpass our moral obligations as we provide asylum seekers with shelter, food, health care, education, and a host of other services,” the mayor continued.
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