Migrant shelter tents seen on Randall's Island
General views of migrant shelter tents being erected on Randall's Island in New York City, Tuesday, October 11, 2022. (Credit: Rob O'Neil for Fox News Digital)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to build an emergency shelter for migrants from Texas and other border states on Randall’s Island is coming under fire from critics ripping the location for its proximity to a maximum-security psychiatric hospital and homeless shelters providing beds to violent offenders.
Announcing an estimated 17,000 migrants have been bused to the Big Apple since the spring, Adams, a Democrat, declared a state of emergency on Friday, adding that in the next few weeks, "we’ll be opening a large Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center on Randall’s Island that will safely house hundreds of people who have found themselves in New York City after a long journey from our southern border."
"I will be there to welcome them and to stay with them, to hear their stories," Adams promised. "But unless we take immediate action, that center will be full in days. And we will have to open another and another and another, even as winter weather arrives."
But safely running such a migrant tent city is a lofty promise on Randall’s Island, according to Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who unsuccessfully ran as a Republican against Adams last year.
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"That is sort of like mixing ammonia and bleach. You are asking for a problem," Sliwa told Fox News Digital. "There's going to be a riot on the island."
Migrant shelter tents being erected on Randall's Island in New York City, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. (Rob O'Neil for Fox News Digital)
Just .81 square miles in size, Randall’s Island is home to the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, a maximum-security facility positioned behind razor-wired fencing for mentally ill patients accused of extremely violent crimes, including serial killings and cannibalism. The island, Sliwa noted, also has some of the most dangerous men’s shelters in the Big Apple – serving clients struggling with drug and alcohol addictions and mental issues – who are required to return by a 10 p.m. curfew.
Adams’ tent city will bring in another some 500 migrants, mostly able-bodied men unable to legally work.
Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Randall's Island in New York City, Oct. 11, 2022. (Rob O'Neil for Fox News Digital)
"There are going to be people attacking those illegals, the emotionally disturbed people who are drug addicted, people who are violent criminals, who go in and out of the shelter systems," Sliwa said. "You're going to have these American-grown homeless people… Who are going to say what? ‘They're not even Americans. And they're getting five-star top-shelf treatment, bus rides, phones, swag bags, food, clothing. And we're only getting a cot in a room, a dormitory room with other homeless guys.’"
Before the emergency declaration Friday, Adams re-upped his public feud with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, accusing the Republican of targeting Black mayor-led cities by busing migrants to New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
"This is a garbage attempt to deflect from the hypocrisy of Democrat mayors not wanting to fulfill their self-declared sanctuary city promises," Abbott’s spokeswoman, Renae Eze, shot back in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital. "Where was all this condemnation and outrage as President Biden flew planeloads of migrants across the country, oftentimes in the cover of night? Mayors Adams, Bowser and Lightfoot were all too happy to tout their sanctuary city statuses until Texas bused a few thousand migrants into their cities. Instead of pathetic political attacks and complaints about dealing with a fraction of the border crisis Texas communities see every day, these hypocritical Democrats should call on their party leader, President Biden, to do his job and take immediate action to secure the border – something the president continues failing to do."
"We’ll be opening a large Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center on Randall’s Island that will safely house hundreds of people who have found themselves in New York City after a long journey from our southern border," Mayor Adams said. (Rob O'Neil for Fox News Digital)
Also on Randall’s Island are practice fields for some of New York City’s most elite private girls’ schools.
For example, The Brearley School, The Chapin School and The Spence School varsity soccer teams all practice there this fall season. Randall’s Island also is home to John McEnroe Tennis Academy, one of the premiere tennis facilities in the country, where VIP tennis stars train while in town for the U.S. Open. Tuition for the tennis academy’s after-school program starts at $13,000 for the academic year.
John McEnroe Tennis Academy on Randall's Island in New York City, Oct. 11, 2022. (Rob O'Neil for Fox News Digital)
FDNY has a training facility on the 516-acre island. And New York state troopers have barracks not far from the footbridge connecting to Manhattan, so Sliwa speculated a commander likely called Gov. Kathy Hochul asking her to deploy some 100 National Guardsmen to help run the migrant shelter over safety concerns.
Adams on Friday issued Emergency Executive Order 224, "formally directing all relevant city agencies to coordinate their efforts to respond to the asylum seeker humanitarian crisis and construct the city’s Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers." He projects New York City, which has received hundreds of buses since April, will spend $1 billion related to asylum seekers this fiscal year alone.
Soccer fields on Randall's Island in New York City, Oct. 11, 2022. (Rob O'Neil for Fox News Digital)
"We the taxpayers in New York City have to afford this," Sliwa said. "This is so unfair."
So far, New York City has more than 61,000 people in its shelter system, one out of five of whom are asylum seekers. Already at 100% capacity, Adams projects 100,000 people to be in the system by the end of the year.
The city has opened 42 hotels as emergency shelters and enrolled 5,200 migrant children in public schools.
The Big Apple set up a Navigation Center led by Catholic Charities that provides case management, a range of settlement options, and health services, including medical checkups, vaccinations, medication refills and mental health services. And Adams said the city is providing migrants with legal information, Fair Fares transit support, and IDNYC enrollment to those who need it.
New York City has more than 61,000 people in its shelter system, one out of five of whom are asylum seekers. (Rob O'Neil for Fox News Digital)
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"New York City is doing all we can, but we are reaching the outer limit of our ability to help," Adams has said renewing calls for federal funding. "If our city had had coordination or even just cooperation from any of the states sending buses, or more support from our partners, then maybe we could have budgeted, staffed and allocated resources for these asylum seekers. But we didn’t get the support and information we asked for, and now, New York City is being forced to bear far more than its share of this national crisis caused by political motivation. Mayors are already on the front lines of every other crisis this country is suffering from – from gun violence to climate change. But local government cannot be the solution for national crises – especially manufactured crises."
"New York City is doing all we can, but we are reaching the outer limit of our ability to help," Mayor Adams has said. (Rob O'Neil for Fox News Digital)
But Sliwa said the mayor is "rolling out the red carpet" for migrants and is hypocritical to demand communication from Abbott while welcoming buses of migrants from the Democratic mayor of El Paso and refusing to communicate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
General views of migrant shelter tents being erected on Randall's Island in New York City, Tuesday, October 11, 2022. (Rob O'Neil for Fox News Digital)
"He's ordered all agencies you are to have no working relationship with ICE whatsoever. The very group formed after the attack at 9/11 to keep us safe and secure. They go after people who've overstayed their visas and who are here illegally, who have committed crimes while here," Sliwa told Fox News Digital of Adams. "You won't communicate with immigration. ICE is serving a retainer because they have a criminal alien here who's committed horrible crimes, and you won't allow them to do their job. Disgraceful. And now you're claiming that Abbott isn't communicating with you."
The original migrant tent city project was slated for Orchard Beach in the Bronx. (Rob O'Neil for Fox News Digital)
The original migrant tent city project was slated for Orchard Beach in the Bronx, but even progressive city council members ripped fellow Democrat Adams for choosing a flood-prone location far from public transportation for migrants and using a contractor previously involved in former President Donald Trump’s border wall. Last week, Adams moved the project to the smaller-sized Randall’s Island, which "will provide temporary respite to 500 asylum seekers" as the city explores other housing options.
Joe Borelli, the minority leader of the New York City Council, has sounded the alarm that the city was negotiating a deal with Norwegian Cruise Lines to dock a ship at the old Navy home port on Staten Island to house the migrants, but the Adams administration has not finalized those plans.
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