Dozens of fed-up New Yorkers rallied outside a massive Brooklyn migrant shelter on Sunday, demanding that City Hall hesitate to renew the controversial lease for the troubled 2,000-bed facility on Federal Park Grounds.
Led by a caravan of more than 30 vehicles, the crowd rallied outside Floyd Bennett Airfield in Marine Park, the latest in a series of demonstrations against an asylum seeker camp at the former federal airfield. Elected officials, military veterans and private citizens all opened fire on the site.
“These immigrants are coming, they're going door-to-door, they're stealing packages, they're touting everywhere in front of supermarkets, and they're pulling at people's heartstrings,” State Assemblyman Jamie Williams (R-Brooklyn) told the Post.
“This is not what our community is about,” Williams said. “Floyd Bennett Field is not a place to house immigrants. This is a flood zone. [with] “There's no infrastructure at all. So when you put them in that situation, there's nothing to do. They end up on the street because there are no jobs.”
This meeting was held in the city Lease the site to the National Park Service It is set to expire on September 14th.
Local residents held a similar caravan and rally in June amid repeated complaints from neighbors and concerns about illegal immigrants causing nuisances in the area.
“I don't care if they come legally or not,” Antonia Natar, a longtime resident of the area, said Sunday. “That's the essence of our country. That's the foundation our country was built on. A lot of immigrants are legal, and I support that.”
“We feel like we need to eliminate illegal immigration throughout the city and eliminate shelters,” Natale added. “We can't do that. It would hurt our economy, it would hurt the housing market, it would hurt everything.”
Navy veteran Martin Vesuto was more blunt.
“What's going on right now is, in my words, all bullshit,” he said.
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa has led multiple anti-shelter rallies across the five boroughs and has repeatedly highlighted the costs to taxpayers of housing large numbers of migrants.
“They're still coming every day,” Sliwa said Sunday. “They're still [city intake center at] “The Roosevelt Hotel. They have total immunity. They arrest illegal immigrants and they let them go.”
Floyd Bennett Field is one of numerous sites across the five boroughs that have been converted into shelters to house the thousands of migrants who have flooded into New York since 2022.
Gov. Kathy Hokul helped broker an agreement with the Biden administration to use the facility in late August last year, when New York City was scrambling to find a place to house a wave of asylum seekers.
Most of the asylum seekers have crossed the US-Mexico border and traveled north to “sanctuary cities” such as New York, where the influx has overwhelmed the city's capacity to accommodate refugees.
The Post reported in January that the former airfield had become a hotbed of unrest and violence since it was converted into a migrant shelter, after a domestic violence incident there in December and a string of assault arrests and gun seizures, police said.
In January, migrants, including children, had to be temporarily evacuated in the middle of the night as dangerously strong winds approached the city, raising concerns about toppling tents and deadly flooding.
Despite local outrage, city officials said the temporary shelter in Brooklyn Park was needed to accommodate the new arrivals, as more than 214,000 migrants have arrived in New York in the past two years.
“With more than 210 emergency shelters currently operating and hundreds of new evacuees continuing to arrive in New York City every week, we have been running out of good options for some time,” a City Hall spokesperson said in a statement.
“The Floyd Bennett Field facility is one of the very limited resources available to shelter hundreds of migrant families and children each night. We continue to seek additional support from our federal partners and encourage our elected partners to join us.”
