The city of New York, famously known as the “Big Apple,” is facing a growing crisis regarding its handling of asylum seekers. On Monday, the situation escalated when over a hundred asylum seekers who had been housed at a Midtown hotel, The Watson Hotel, set up an encampment outside rather than move to a new impromptu shelter arranged by Mayor Eric Adams.

This encampment is the latest development in the city’s ongoing struggle to accommodate the sudden surge in asylum seekers in recent months. Residents of the area are already complaining about the situation, with one single mother telling DailyMail.com that she feels compelled to carry pepper spray just to make it through the crowded and rowdy area to get to her home across the street.

Efforts to house these asylum seekers have proven to be unsuccessful in recent months. The city has tried several solutions, such as a scrapped tent city in The Bronx and a proposed facility on Randall’s Island, but both have failed to materialize. As a result, many of the asylum seekers have been housed in hotels, with hundreds of male asylum seekers residing at The Watson Hotel since November.

Last week, Mayor Adams announced a new plan to address the crisis, stating that a shelter at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal would become the new home for at least 1,000 male migrants, including all those staying at The Watson Hotel. This announcement caused concern among the migrants residing at The Watson, who had been residing there for free for the past three months.

On Sunday night, some migrants decided to protest the Mayor’s declaration by setting up outside the hotel and refusing to relocate, citing privacy concerns and the inadequate conditions at the new shelter. By Monday, many of these migrants found themselves locked out of their rooms at The Watson, leading them to set up camp directly outside the luxury building in direct defiance of Mayor Adams’ order.

Photographs taken on Monday morning show dozens of tents lined up along 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. The migrants were reportedly removed from their rooms one by one, with others reporting that they were not being allowed back into their rooms to retrieve their belongings.

Scrawled messages in Spanish, such as “We need a place to sleep” and “We need help,” offer a glimpse into the minds of the displaced group, who are all men. The encampment appeared sometime before 4 a.m., causing police officers from the NYPD to arrive on the scene a few hours later. As of noon on Monday, a police patrol car remained at the scene to monitor the situation.

The displaced asylum seekers protested their prospective transfer to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal by painting a massive banner to be hung outside The Watson Hotel that read “Permanent homes” and calling on city officials to “cancel rent.” The tents reportedly were gifted to the displaced men by members of the local community, and within hours, organizers had set up a table with coffee, bananas, water, and pizza for the migrants.

Despite the Mayor’s deadline for Monday, several of the asylum seekers refused to leave, hoping that their noncompliance will force Mayor Adams to reconsider his plan to relocate them to the Red Hook ferry terminal. In one of the most recent updates to the situation, Mayor Adams announced that the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will open and house about 1,000 male migrants. The Watson Hotel is one of multiple hotels being used to house migrants, and Mayor Adams’ plan calls for those who had been residing there to be relocated to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal and the new shelter.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)