Migrants fill sidewalk outside of the Roosevelt Hotel
Migrants await registration outside of the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, August 1, 2023. The asylum seekers are forced to wait on the streets, since the hotel is currently at capacity. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
An immigrant advocacy group took aim at New York City Mayor Eric Adams, claiming the mayor is using asylum seekers as "props" to obtain more federal money.
"Mayor Adams should not be using asylum seekers as props to get the attention of the Biden administration or discourage asylum seekers from coming to New York," Murad Awawdeh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said, according to a report in The Associated Press.
The comments come after days of newly arriving migrants have overwhelmed the city, with the already-full Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan seeing lines of asylum seekers waiting outside the building and sleeping on the sidewalk as they await placement at a city shelter.
ASYLUM SEEKERS SLEEP ON NEW YORK CITY SIDEWALK WITH MANHATTAN'S ROOSEVELT HOTEL AT FULL CAPACITY
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, left, and migrants awaiting registration outside the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan. (Fox News)
Adams has said that the city is out of room to host more migrants and attempted to discourage them from coming to New York.
However, Awawdeh believes the city could be doing more, arguing that people should not be left out to sleep on the street.
"It’s hard to imagine that there are not enough beds to actually accommodate the people that the Adams administration is leaving out on the street," he said.
The comments received pushback from Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom at a Thursday press briefing, who argued the city's shelter system is at a "breaking point."
"I don’t think I or any person in this administration would use people to do any type of a stunt," Williams-Isom said.
Migrants await registration outside the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023. The asylum seekers are forced to wait on the streets, since the hotel is currently at capacity. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital )
MORE NYC MIGRANTS IN CITY SHELTERS THAN HOMELESS FOR FIRST TIME EVER: 'TIPPING POINT'
A Fox News Digital reporter captured the scene outside the Roosevelt Hotel earlier this week, with pictures showing migrants lined up around the outside of the building wrapped in blankets and sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder.
City officials told Fox News Digital the hotel is an arrival center for all migrants but only houses children and families, who are put at the front of the line upon their arrival. Adults seeking asylum who arrive at the hotel are not placed there, but meet with caseworkers, receive food and vaccinations, and await placement elsewhere.
Migrants arrive at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, New York, on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital )
"As we've said for a while now, with more than 93,000 asylum seekers coming through our intake system since last spring, our teams run out of space every single day and we do our best to offer placements wherever we have space available," Mayor Adams spokesperson Fabien Levy told Fox News Digital earlier this week.
"Children and families continue to be prioritized and are found a bed every night. We continue to do our best to at least offer adults a temporary place to wait off the sidewalks, but, in all honesty, New Yorkers may continue to see more and more migrants waiting outside as hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive in our city seeking shelter every day," Levy said.
"This is the heartbreaking reality and something our teams have worked tirelessly to avoid, but while our compassion is limitless, our resources are not. We still desperately need help from our state and federal partners. In the meantime, we encourage migrants to take up placements available outside of New York City as they become available."
Migrants await registration outside the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023. The asylum seekers are forced to wait on the streets, since the hotel is currently at capacity. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital )
According to The Associated Press report, New York City officials say that the city's shelter system is designed to hold tens of thousands fewer people than have arrived in the city. Adams has insisted the city is doing everything in its power to keep up with the influx, including the leasing of hotels and opening new shelters.
"It’s not going to get any better. From this moment on it’s downhill. There is no more room," Adams said earlier this week, according to AP. "I can assure you that this city is not going to look like other cities where there are tents up and down every street."
The mayor's office did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.
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