- Immigration is rapidly increasing in New York City, with the number expected to exceed 185,000 by 2022.
- Mosques, such as those in Harlem and the Bronx, have become a major destination for immigrants arriving in the city.
- This surge is overwhelming the capacity of Islamic institutions during Ramadan.
A mosque gathering above a warehouse in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood holds iftar, the end of the traditional Islamic fast, every night for hundreds of hungry immigrants during this holy month of Ramadan. has been done.
An imam in the north Bronx has turned the two-story brick mansion that houses his mosque into a temporary overnight shelter for migrants. Many of them are from his native Senegal.
As the number of asylum seekers from Muslim-majority African countries increases, Islamic institutions in the Big Apple are struggling to meet the needs of the city’s immigrant population. This challenge became even more pronounced during Ramadan, which began on March 11 and ended on April 9.
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Many mosques open their doors to migrants during the day, becoming de facto day centers where new migrants can find a quiet place to rest and recuperate after sleepless nights on the streets or in the subway.
Imam Omar Nias leads evening prayers with migrants ahead of the end of the Ramadan fast at Masjid Ansar Deen Mosque in the Bronx, New York, on March 15, 2024. The mosque, once the imam’s home, has been a refuge since 2020, where hundreds of African migrants can receive help in seeking asylum. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
Muslim leaders said in recent days they had stepped up appeals for donations of money, food, clothing and other supplies.
“We’re doing what we can, but we can’t do everything. That’s the bottom line,” said Moussa Sanogo, assistant imam at Masjid Aqsa Salam in Harlem, just north of Central Park. “These brothers, they don’t have enough to eat. They come here and they’re starving. Can you imagine? They’re starving. In America.”
Imam Omar Nias, who runs the Bronx mosque Jamhyat Ansar Deen, says the least he can do is provide newly arrived immigrants with a place to sleep, even at great personal expense. He said it was about.
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His utility bills have long exceeded his ability to pay. He estimates he is behind on about $7,000 in electric service for his home and another $11,000 in water service.
“In our culture, we cannot deny people who come to the mosque,” he said on a recent Friday as more than 50 men arrived for afternoon prayers. “We continue to take in people because they have nowhere to go. Once they come, they stay there. We feed them and do everything we can to help them. doing.”
The recent immigration surge has seen more than 185,000 asylum seekers arrive in New York City since spring 2022, with Senegal, Guinea and Mauritania among the top nationalities represented in new cases in the state’s federal immigration court. This includes Africans from major Muslim countries. .
New York City’s estimated 275 mosques are often the first stops for immigrants arriving in the city, making them one of the first places to feel the influence of the African wave, according to the Harlem-based advocacy group Africa.・Asefash Makonnen of Community Together says: Support for African immigrants.
But relying solely on the generosity of faith-based communities, many of which are already struggling to survive, is not sustainable in the long term, she says.
Last summer, Democratic Mayor Eric Adams touted a program that would provide funding, security and other support to up to 75 mosques, churches and synagogues that agreed to provide overnight shelter to migrants. did.
But so far, only about 100 beds have been approved to provide additional space for the more than 64,000 migrants the city is currently housing in hotels and other shelters. There are only six chapels.
Bishop Matthew Hayde of the Episcopal Diocese of New York said the challenge for many faith-based facilities is that they are located in older buildings that do not meet current fire safety standards.
He said more “common sense” regulations would allow houses of worship to accommodate immigrants at a fraction of the cost the city currently pays to house them in hotels in the five boroughs. He said he is ready to provide 5,000 beds.
“We want to be part of the solution to this problem. We’ve always done that and we can continue to do that,” said Hyde, who founded the city in the 1980s. mentioned the network of faith-based shelters that have grown in response to the homelessness crisis.
Adams spokeswoman Kayla Mamelak said the city responded to concerns and earlier this year lowered the maximum number of beds allowed in faith-based shelters from 19 to 15, which requires sprinklers under the city’s building code. He said this means the installation of the system will no longer be mandatory.
“We are making changes wherever possible,” she said. “Of course, the health and safety of the people we protect has to come first. You can’t just walk into a church and turn it into a shelter.”
In the Bronx, Nias said he doesn’t think much about urban planning. He also stressed that the city collects no rent from immigrants, in contrast to illegal and dangerously overcrowded immigrant boarding houses that the city has closed in recent weeks.
Still, the situation at the mosque is less than ideal.
On a recent visit, the men were resting on the floor of the basement prayer room between the day’s five prayers. In the backyard, there was a microwave and kettle for preparing basic meals, a shed for storing luggage, and file cabinets for storing incoming mail, where many people could relax. A portable toilet near the driveway was covered with a blue tarp, but it did little to hide the odor that attracted swarms of flies.
Malick Thiam, a Senegalese immigrant who has been staying at a mosque in Nias for about a month, said he was grateful for the hospitality but was looking forward to finding his own place.
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The 29-year-old, who arrived in the country in August, said he recently started working late-night food deliveries. He said he usually returns to the mosque just as others wake up for their early morning shifts, avoiding conflicts where the men compete for a place to sleep.
“Sometimes we fought, sometimes we faced a lot of problems,” Thiam said in clear but sometimes broken English, as he relaxed in the mosque’s backyard. “It’s not easy to live here. It’s hard. It’s very, very hard.”
Alfakar Diallo, who has returned to Harlem, is similarly grateful for the support Masjid Aqsa-Salaam has provided, but is anxious to get on with his life. Like many others who come for iftar, the 39-year-old immigrant from Guinea says he is still waiting for a work permit nearly eight months after arriving in the country.
Until then, the mosque provides him with a place to stay warm, nourished and close to the faith that has sustained him.
“If it wasn’t for the masjid, I don’t know where I would be,” he said in French through an interpreter.
