City scraps plan to bring migrant shelter to Aqueduct
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Elected officials, including City Councilmember Joann Ariola, and civic leaders led a protest-turned-rally outside of Resorts World Casino against a plan to bring a migrant tent shelter to Aqueduct Racetrack on Monday night. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
Off the side of a highway on Monday evening, protesters and local elected officials gathered to oppose plans to construct a tent shelter for asylum seekers at the Aqueduct Racetrack in South Queens.
However, just before the demonstration was set to begin, officials learned that the plan had been scrapped.
A few dozen protesters stood in a grass patch between the entrance to Resorts World and North Conduit Boulevard, ready for a rally against the city and state’s plan to bring 1,000 adult migrants to the racetrack, but quickly changed gears once City Counilmember Joann Ariola announced that the shelter at Aqueduct was “off the table.”
She said that the quick change in plans was the result of phone calls and letters sent from officials to the city arguing against the tent shelter. According to Ariola, the calls began just after the non-profit news outlet THE CITY reported on Sunday that the Adams and Hochul administrations intended to construct the tent shelters – similar to the shortly lived camps at Orchard Beach and Randall’s Island – at Aqueduct, as well as the Creedmoor Psychiatric Facility in Eastern Queens.
Ariola called it a victory, albeit a temporary one. The potential for the site to be revisited as a shelter as the migrant crisis continues remains.
On Tuesday, City Hall Spokesperson Kate Smart said that “all options are on the table.”
“That hasn’t changed,” Smart said.
While there won’t be a shelter at Aqueduct in the coming weeks, the potential tent shelter at Creedmoor is still an “ongoing dialogue,” according to spokesperson for State Senator Leroy Comrie.
The structures would be constructed in the next few weeks, and would provide shelter to around 1,000 adults who had come to New York City from the southern border.
Elected officials and civic leaders from both areas of Queens quickly condemned the plans, criticizing the plan itself as well as the city’s lack of notice that it was happening.
The electeds and leaders outside Resorts World on Monday said the plan would leave them more strained for resources.
“Think about what the facility can hold and what our community can hold,” said Community Board 10 President Betty Bratton.
Both sites are as removed from city life as one can get within a city of 8 million people. And both sites are among a small number of large, mostly-empty spaces in the borough. Creedmoor has been mostly abandoned for decades and will remain that way for at least several more years. Aqueduct's lots are only used during horse racing season, which doesn't resume until November.
After Ariola announced that a shelter was no longer being planned for Aqueduct, the protest became more of a rally, not only celebrating the scrapping of the plan, but also calling on the state and federal governments to lend more financial assistance for the crisis.
However, what emerged during the rally was an ideological split – though everyone at the rally was opposed to bringing 1,000 migrants to the neighborhood, some called for more robust work authorizations and housing placements for the migrants, while others called for their removal from the country entirely.
“The federal government refuses to deal with the heart of the issue, which is securing our borders and coming up with a plan to determine who is in fact eligible for asylum,” said Phyllis Inserillo, the co-president of the Howard Beach-Lindenwood Civic Association. “Governor [Kathy] Hochul refuses to call a state of emergency over the asylum seeker crisis, yet the burden of it all remains on all of us, the hardworking taxpayers who are continually asked to bankroll this irresponsibility.”
The officials, which included State Senator Joseph Addabbo as well as Ariola, called on establishing a state of emergency, which would lead to more cash to solve the crisis.
“If the federal government doesn’t kick in the money…if the federal government does not do its part, we have problems,” Addabbo said. “Enjoy the victory today, but the work is not done.”
However, not everyone’s suggestions on how to solve the problem were met with support.
During her remarks, Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar called for the federal government to expedite work authorization for migrants so that they can provide for themselves and their families and not require as much financial support from the city.
Rajkumar’s suggestion was shouted down by the crowd, who chimed in with unproven fears that migrants would “take jobs,” and several calls to “close the border.”
The crowd outside of Resorts World on Monday. Eagle Photo by ryan schwach
The South Queens lawmaker, herself the daughter of Indian immigrants, waited for the heckles to stop before resuming her speech.
“I have no judgment on anything,” she told the Eagle following the protest. “This is a national problem, and it requires an actual solution, and that's what I put forth. I think a lot of people that I spoke to in the crowd understood that. I wasn't here to shout and scream and inflame passions, I was here to solve the problem.”
Rajkumar’s call for expedited work authorization has been championed by Mayor Eric Adams, who has cited the change in federal policy as a way to calm the crisis.
“It's known that this is a bipartisan solution,” Rajkumar said. “Republicans and Democrats in the world at large support this, I can’t speak to the particular crowd today. It might have been feelings of passion and anger that were guiding that response.”
State Senator James Sanders was also heckled for defending Adams’ response to the crisis.
The potential tent shelters in Queens would be built similar to the one that was constructed on Randall’s Island, pictured here. File photo by Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
Electeds agreed on Tuesday that much of the blame can be placed on governor’s like Texas’ Greg Abbott, who has bussed many of the migrants to the city.
“That’s the whole fault,” said Addabbo. “I don't like to play politics, but that's the political game…I wish other states were just handling their numbers.”
“I think everyone should stop sending buses to our city,” added Ariola. “The mayor is not the bad guy here, it’s the federal government and Governor Hochul.”
However, a number of local elected officials, as well as immigrant advocates, have been highly critical of the mayor’s response to the crisis. He faced pushback over his attempts to circumvent the city’s Right to Shelter rules, for his original proposal to house migrants in large tent facilities built on flood-prone land and for his attempts to send migrants to other municipalities in New York State. The City Council has accused his administration of inflating the total cost of the crisis and for not supporting housing policies that they say would ease the strain on shelters.
But not much of that criticism was heard Monday night.
“The [Adams] administration is the victim of their own success, because they're doing what they need to do,” said Ariola. “They are funding shelters, they are providing services, they are providing education, but it's getting tighter and tighter…and at this point, it's unsustainable.”
The only real criticism of Adams came over his administration’s lack of communication over the plans to bring the shelters to Creedmoor and, for a time, the Aqueduct Racetrack.
Assemblymembers Ed Braunstein, David Weprin and Clyde Vanel, Senators Comrie, John Liu and Toby Ann Stavisky and Councilmembers Linda Lee and Vickie Paladino said in a joint statement that they had not previously been consulted on two shelters recently opened in Bellerose, nor had they been consulted on the Creedmoor proposal.
“Communication from the Administration and the State must include the involvement of local elected officials and community leaders to ensure the viability of these shelters, and the welfare of the surrounding communities and migrants seeking refuge,” the group of officials said in a statement.
“There is much work ahead to improve access to housing, quell the record homelessness NYC is facing, and address the asylum seeker crisis,” they added. “We look forward to ensuring transparency as this development unfolds, and we will share additional information as it becomes available.”
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards also called on the Adams administration to be more communicative with local officials about their plans to build shelters. But the borough president also said that “we cannot lose sight of the individuals at the heart of this crisis.”
“In The World’s Borough, we have always opened our arms to anyone who wishes to build that better life right here in our community,” Richards said in a Sunday statement. “That will never change, regardless of circumstance.”
