NYC shuts down notorious migrant shelter but opens another

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) announced on Friday the closure of a notorious tent city migrant shelter at Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field.

The makeshift facility opened in November 2023 and provided 2,000 beds to the city's illegal alien population.

'The federal government did not do its job.'

Residents had complained that the area had turned into a hotbed for panhandling. In March, House Republicans claimed that the encampment had been linked to "an uptick in crime" in the surrounding neighborhood.

"The widespread reports of criminality in and around the Floyd Bennett Field migrant encampment include domestic violence, assault, shoplifting, prostitution, and panhandling scams," the GOP lawmakers said. "The Committee is deeply concerned with the Biden administration's management of American's public lands, notably at Floyd Bennett Field, and the inherent safety risks to employees at the park, residents of the surrounding communities, and migrants as a result of the decision to lease national park land for a migrant encampment."

In December, Adams' administration announced plans to close the Floyd Bennett Field shelter and two dozen other shelter facilities. He credited the closures to a decline in migrant arrivals and the city's "smart management strategies."

Adams told reporters on Saturday, "I just want to personally say sorry ... because this is something that none of us wanted. The federal government did not do its job, and New Yorkers had to do it for them."

Adams called the Floyd Bennett Field shelter an "inconvenience."

"We should use this as a teaching moment. No city should have to handle a national problem such as immigration," he said.

In Friday's announcement, the city added another 10 facilities to its list of planned closures, including the Holiday Inn in Staten Island's Travis neighborhood.

It also noted that it would "open a smaller brick-and-mortar congregate facility on Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx dedicated to single adult male residents transferred from the tent-based emergency site at Randall's Island."

Adams' decision to close city-run shelters received support from Republican leaders.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) said, "We're very pleased to learn that another migrant shelter in our community will close in the coming months."

"The Holiday Inn shelter in Travis has been a nuisance to the community with a number of quality of life issues, including panhandling, prostitution, and car break-ins in the surrounding neighborhood," Malliotakis continued. "After multiple meetings with the Mayor's Office, we're pleased that they've listened to the concerns raised by myself and Councilman [David] Carr and have agreed to take action to begin closing these facilities down. This is another step in the right direction, but we won't stop fighting until every one of these shelters draining our tax dollars and impacting our neighborhoods is shuttered."

City Council Member David Carr (R) stated, "This is great news for the people of Travis who have been living with the consequences of having three emergency shelters in their neighborhood."

"I have been fighting for this area alongside my colleagues since 2022, and given they were the first area of Staten Island to have one, it makes sense that they'd be the first [to] have an announced closure with hopefully more to come. I thank the mayor for starting this process," he added.

The Gothamist reported that the federal government has plans to rehabilitate Floyd Bennett Field, which features a pool, ice rink, gymnastics center, rock climbing, and athletic fields.

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