NYC Migrants: Tent Encampment Protest

* Eric Adams announced that the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will house migrants

* About 1,000 single males will relocate from a Manhattan hotel to the terminal

* They will be replaced by migrant families as NYC migrant crisis continues

The Big Apple's migrant woes worsened on Monday, as more than a hundred asylum seekers that had been put up at a trendy Midtown hotel set up a tent encampment outside rather than move to a impromptu shelter set up by Mayor Eric Adams.

The encampment sprouted up outside The Watson Hotel seemingly overnight, and serves as the latest development in the city's ongoing struggle to house an abnormal outflow of asylum seekers seen in recent months.

Several failed courses of action to quell the burden -  such as a planned tent city in The Bronx and a proposed facility on Randall's Island that never materialized - have failed in recent months, and resulted in many of the migrants being housed at the $450-a-night, 3.5-star hotel, where they have remained since November.

Last week, Adams announced that a then-planned shelter at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal would become the new home for at least 1,000 male migrants, offering a deadline to vacate of this Monday for men currently staying at the Watson.

That spurred several migrants Sunday night to take up outside the building to protest the mayor's declaration - with many outright refusing to relocate, citing privacy concerns and non-optimal conditions at the pop-up facility.

By Monday, as several found themselves locked out of their respective rooms at the Watson, the predominantly Latin American procession remained, setting up camp directly outside the luxury building in direct defiance of Adam's order.

Photographs taken Monday morning show dozens of tents lining the sidewalk on 57th street directly outside the hotel, while some male asylum seekers were seen keeping warm by wrapping themselves in blankets and sleeping bags.

They were reportedly removed from their rooms one-by-one, with others returning to their rooms Monday telling reporters they were not being allowed back into their rooms to retrieve their belongings.

Messages scrawled on cardboard in Spanish littered across the campsite offered a glimpse into the mindset of the displaced group, all of whom were men.

'Nesecitamos vivienda para dormir,' one of the signages read, which translates to 'We need a place to sleep.'

Another read, 'Nesecitamos ayudo por favor,' which, in English, simply means: 'We need help.'

One sign, also penned in Spanish, demanded an end to discrimination against immigrants.

The outdoor encampment surfaced sometime before 4am, spurring officers from the NYPD to arrive on the scene just a few hours later. As of noon Monday, a police patrol car remained at the scene The Watson, seemingly to monitor the situation.

Earlier in the morning, the displaced asylum seekers protested their prospective transfer to the cruise terminal - which, unlike the Watson, offers migrants only a single, army-style cot as opposed to an actual bed - by painting a massive banner to be hung on the scaffolding outside the Watson Hotel.

The call for alternative housing was accompanied by another demand, this one written in English, that besieged New York officials such as Adams to 'c

The tents reportedly were gifted to the displaced men by members of the local community, after several were seen in the early morning sleeping on Mylar blankets spread directly on the concrete.

Within hours, organizers would set up a table complete with coffee, bananas, water, and pizza for the migrants, as members of the press also convened to cover the developing demonstration.

Refusing to leave Monday morning, several of the asylum seekers said that they are hoping their noncompliance spurs Adams to reconsider his office’s plan to relocate them to the Red Hook ferry terminal.

In one of the most recent updates to the ongoing saga, Adams, 62, announced that the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal - set near the southern end of the East River between Brooklyn and Governors Island - would open and house about 1,000 male migrants.

The Watson, one of multiple hotels being used to house migrants, is a men's-only shelter - with Adams' recently laid plan calling for those who had been shacked up there free of charge for the past three months to be relocated to the terminal and the bare-bones shelter.

Upon announcing his intentions, Adams said his office planned to replace the displaced single male migrants with families that are currently being put up at the $700-a night Row, a nearby luxury hotel in Hell's Kitchen.

Early Monday morning, as the migrants' eviction deadline rapidly approached, only a small number were seen getting on buses tasked with bringing as many of the asylum seekers as possible to the Brooklyn shelter.... (Read more)

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