Protestors clash over upcoming Creedmoor migrant shelter
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Dueling protests, for and against a plan to bring a migrant shelter to Eastern Queens, took over Hillside Avenue across the street from the planned Creedmoor shelter on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. Eagle photos by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
A chaotic scene in Eastern Queens broke out after a small group of Queens residents urging a more welcoming attitude toward asylum seekers clashed with a much larger group of people protesting an upcoming 1,000-bed tent shelter for migrants at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Campus.
Police, who did not appear prepared for the scene, attempted to organize and corral the large crowds out of the way of oncoming traffic during the Tuesday evening protest. Speakers shouted through megaphones, angry words were exchanged and forceful winds blowing throughout the evening made the entire situation feel as though it was not rooted on steady ground.
In the suburban neighborhood of Bellerose, the city is constructing a 1,000-bed tent shelter, dubbed a “Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers,” for asylum seekers near the Creedmoor Psychiatric Facility. The shelter is one of several expected to be built in the coming weeks as New York tries to find space for the nearly 60,000 asylum seekers – and counting – currently in its care.
On Tuesday night, several hundred Queens residents rallied against that shelter, taking up two entire sides of Hillside Avenue and slowing traffic, and in a few cases exchanging arguments with a small contingent of locals looking to welcome immigrants to the World’s Borough.
The plan to build the tent shelter was announced in July, and received swift criticism from local elected officials like City Councilmember Linda Lee and State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, who argued that the site would be inadequate for migrants due to a lack of surrounding resources and the area’s isolation from public transit and urban life.
Those concerns were not the main ones shared by locals at the protest on Tuesday. Many shared safety concerns and unfounded worries that migrants could harm or terrorize their community.
“It's not the right place, you don't have 1,000 single men across from a public school, where boys and girls are playing in the Little League, and the SNAP club about 20 feet away,” said a local co-op and civic leader, Bobby Sher. “It's just the wrong place.”
“They don't have jobs, they don't have cars, they have nowhere to go,” he added. “They're going to wake up sleeping on a cot and do what? They are going to be on my property…They came to a foreign place called Queens Village, where are they going to go?”
Other protestors, which included former mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa and several Republican political candidates, called out Mayor Eric Adams and the city for their handling of the crisis. Elected officials on both sides of the aisle have criticized Adams for not communicating with local leaders about potential shelters before announcing them.
“[Adams] is being a dictator, there's no precautions out there to provide safety and security,” said Ed Goydas, another local who lives just down the block from where city workers were erecting the tent shelter on Tuesday.
Not all of those who were present shared those same ideas.
Dueling protests, for and against a plan to bring a migrant shelter to Eastern Queens, took over Hillside Avenue across the street from the planned Creedmoor shelter on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. Eagle photos by Ryan Schwach
A small group of about a dozen protestors rallied in support of migrants, holding up signs that read, “Welcome!”
“I grew up in this community and I've lived here for about 27 years of my life, I know this to be a growing vibrant immigrant community, and I think that anyone deserves a chance to live here and have a life of dignity,” said Jaslin Kaur, one of the protestors and former Democratic City Council candidate. “I think it's really disappointing that this is one of the most diverse places in Eastern Queens, and leaders are willing to fear monger people out of bringing dignity, respect and human resources to people who really need it.”
“I'm just really disappointed in civic leaders and elected officials who just don't want people to have to deal with,” she added.
Kaur also rejected the opinion of the local electeds who argue that the shelter conditions won’t be humane for the migrants.
“I think it's the job of any elected official to work through the humane issues that come up in this neighborhood,” she said. “I've heard the defense that there's just also not enough transportation out here, that we’re a transit desert, the shelter would be built right off the Q43, bus line that goes right to the [F train], but people in this neighborhood use public transit all the time.”
On more than a few occasions, anti-shelter protestors clashed with the pro-migrants group, and physical exchanges occurred at least twice but were quickly stopped by police.
John David Rinaldi, a Republican who will be on the ballot in November against City Councilmember Jim Gennaro, shouted at the group and without basis accused them of supporting child trafficking.
“I am here to ensure that this borough continues to be a welcoming place for immigrants like myself, and to make sure that we combat this racist, xenophobic ideology that blames vulnerable people for the conditions,” said Diana Moreno, one of the migrant supporters, and an Ecuadorian immigrant herself. “I am so proud to live in Queens, because it is a community of immigrants, it's the first place I ever felt like home.”
A number of anti-shelter protestors argued that their feelings toward the shelters and migrants were not about xenophobia, but instead about a respect for the law, failing to note that many of those arriving in New York City are in the processes of legally seeking asylum.
“Most of our residents are immigrants, but they came here legally,” said Glen Oaks civic leader Bob Friedrich.
Moreno disagrees, saying those public safety centered ideas could be described as xenophobic.
“[I am] hearing the same things that were said about my mother and my parents when I came here – the assumptions that [immigrants] are criminals and are detrimental to this country,” she said.
Tensions flared during dueling protests outside of Creedmoor on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
As both protests chanted, and NYPD officers tried to keep them separated and out of the way of traffic, city workers on the other side of a gate continued constructing the shelter which brought the protestors there in the first place.
If there was any agreement between the groups, it was over the Adams administration’s handling of the crisis, and of the Creedmoor tent shelter.
“We have a city that's one of the wealthiest cities in the entire country but it has failed the migrants that are coming here,” Moreno said. “We should be putting the responsibility on the Adams administration, and the Biden administration which failed to provide support for New York City and to give immigrants a pathway to citizenship.”
Sher suggested other portions of land further away from residential neighborhoods, namely Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, should also be used to construct shelters.
“There's many, many parcels of land that are not being used,” he said. “You don't shove them into a middle class neighborhood and endanger children and elderly people, and it's not even fair to the 1,000 migrants.”
Worries about fair treatment to the migrants coming to Eastern Queens is on Moreno’s mind, as she shared the concerns of electeds like Lee who say the site’s isolation may hinder the migrants’ attempts to build a life in the city.
The tent shelter being constructed at creedmoor. Eagle photo by ryan schwach
“I am for whatever provides a piece of dignity to these people that have risked their lives to come to this country,” she said. “I will continue to fight for the city and for this country to actually have a comprehensive plan so that these people don't have to stay in tent cities, so that these people don't have to face this sort of hatred when they've already risked their lives to come to this country.”
“Isolation is a real issue, and again, if we're talking about the real issues then we can talk about real solutions,” she added.
