As xenophobic protests rock NYC, the city closes its door to asylum seekers
On a rainy evening in a quiet residential neighbourhood on Staten Island , right wing media personality John Tabacco stood on the back of a flatbed truck in a suit, flanked by the Stars and Stripes and a ‘ Don’t Tread On Me ’ flag.
“Believe it or not, this whole damn country left it up to Staten Island to go toe-to-toe with George Soros!” shouted Tabacco, a host on Newsmax. A crowd of protesters cheered the reference to the anti-Semitic conspiracy. “Staten Island is where we draw a line in the sand. It’s a fight between good and evil,” he went on, to even louder cheers.
The subject of Tabacco’s ire, and the cause of the gathering, lay in the building behind him: a few dozen recently arrived asylum seekers housed in a former school that has been turned into a temporary shelter.
The centre, formerly the St John Villa Academy, has become a focal point for protests against the temporary housing of migrants around New York City. Since late August, local residents have held loud nightly demonstrations outside of the building where a few dozen families and single women are living, clashing with police .
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Some of these protests have taken a sinister and xenophobic turn. On 28 September, The Independent witnessed people holding signs that read “Americans over illegals” and “Send them back!” At an earlier protest, a resident who lives on the same street as the facility set up a loud speaker to play the same message in six languages on repeat: “​​Immigrants are not safe here.” Others have taken to shining bright flashing lights into the windows of shelters at night to disrupt those trying to rest.
In times past, small but vocal anti-migrant protesters here in Staten Island — the most conservative of the five boroughs — might have been an outlier in a city that was built by, and whose very identity is tied to, immigration. But increasingly they have found common cause with Democratic city and state leaders, including mayor Eric Adams and New York ’s governor, Kathy Hochul.
New York City is struggling to deal with a sharp influx of asylum seekers. Currently it is currently providing shelter to around 60,000 asylum seekers, and has been forced to use city-owned buildings in far flung parts of the city to do it. The numbers represent a massive increase on previous years: in 2021, city courts issued around 30,000 notices to appear in immigration court. That number rose to 70,000 in 2022 and doubled again, to reach 140,000, by August of this year.
The Adam’s administration’s response looks set to alter the city’s status as one of the world’s most welcoming places for migrants.
“ We are past our breaking point,” Adams said in August. “New Yorkers’ compassion may be limitless, but our resources are not.”
Those sentiments have been echoed by protesters on Staten Island, but that hasn’t stopped them blaming the mayor for the influx.
“The mayor of the city opened his arms months ago, and welcomed them with candy and gifts, now he’s shitting his pants,” Scott LoBaido, an activist and artist who paints portraits of Donald Trump and American flags, told The Independen t, before taking his turn to speak at the migrant centre protest last week.
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“Everybody’s a sanctuary city enthusiast until the sanctuary city gets plopped in their front door and it is out of control,” he added.
Adams condemned the Staten Island protesters for “some commentary of hate” and “racist comments.” But his tone on rising migrant numbers has changed in recent months, casting it in apocalyptic terms and claiming it will “destroy New York City” if not addressed urgently. Adams is now seeking to exclude migrants from the city’s longstanding ‘right to shelter’ law, which requires authorities to provide shelter for anyone who needs it, arguing that housing migrants will cost the city $12bn .
His administration began distributing flyers at the southern US border, telling migrants there is “no guarantee” they will receive shelter or services. The city shut down a reception centre at the city’s main bus station where volunteers greeted newly arrived migrants and directed them towards city services. Mayor Adams’ chief advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, recently called on the federal government to “ close the borders ,” echoing Republican falsehoods about the US border being open.
