NYC Approves ‘Mega Migrant Housing’ Project in Abandoned Long Island Office Building

Migrants sit in a queue outside of The Roosevelt Hotel that is being used by the city as t
AP Photo/John Minchillo
Warner Todd Huston

Mayor Eric Adams (D-NYC) and the New York City Council announced a massive new project to house 1,000 border crossers inside an empty five-story office building on Long Island.

The building on Austell Place, close to a train yard near Queens, has been designated a “humanitarian response and relief center” and is the city’s 16th large-scale migrant housing center, according to Crain’s New York.

The interiors of the top four floors of the five-story building will be rebuilt for housing, while the bottom floor will be designated as a community gathering spot, sources say.

The city has taken over dozens of buildings, many of which were empty, others which were once for-profit hotels until the city contracted to take them over. Along with the 16 major housing facilities, the city has about 206 smaller facilities to deal with the flood of illegals.

But the shelters have cost the city untold millions of dollars in construction costs, too.

As Crain’s noted, many of these buildings needed heating, cooling, and water system upgrades or amendments to safety issues to accommodate the large numbers of illegals staying inside. In one case, an entire boiler room had to be rebuilt to provide an emergency egress up to building codes, new stormwater drains, and a new exterior entrance before the illegals were allowed to take up residence.

New York videographer Leeroy Johnson recently spoke to a group of illegals from Africa who entered the U.S. through the southern border, and they told Johnson that they were promised “a better life” and jobs if they came to America. They also said they wanted to send money to their home countries.

That desire to send money home is a key point that is rarely discussed in this border crisis. Sending money home, a practice called “remittances,” is a huge problem for the U.S. because that is money being bled out of the domestic economy and sent overseas to other nations. In 2019, for instance, it was estimated that $150 billion a year was being stolen from the U.S. economy as foreigners sent the money back home. And that number has only climbed since President Joe Biden threw borders wide open.

This is money that is not being spent in the U.S. It is money not going to shopkeepers, schools, investments, or bank accounts. It is money lost. And it is a growing economic deficit.

Meanwhile, New York’s Democrat Mayor Eric Adams insists that the flood of illegals “will destroy New York City,” and he is warning the entire city that the illegals will be coming to their neighborhoods whether they want them or not.

“Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this. I don’t see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City, destroy New York City. We’re getting 10,000 migrants a month,” Adams said on Wednesday.

“It’s going to come to your neighborhoods. All of us are going to be impacted by this,” Adams added. “I said it last year when we had 15,000. I’m telling you now with 110,000. The city we knew, we’re about to lose.”

He also noted that the tidal wave of illegals is coming from dozens of nations, not just those south of our border:

One time we were just getting Venezuela, now we’re getting Ecuador, now we’re getting Russian-speaking coming through Mexico, now we’re getting Western Africa, now we’re getting people from all over the globe have made their minds up that they’re going to come through the southern part of the border and come into New York City.

This is, of course, the same Eric Adams who, in 2021, insisted, “Yes, New York City will remain a sanctuary city under an Adams administration.”

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