Migrants Refuse To Leave NYC Hotel For New Shelter

NEW YORK CITY ? Asylum seekers refused to leave a Manhattan hotel's cozy confines after they got a cold, hard look at the city's new migrant shelter in Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.

Many migrants who were slated to be moved from the Watson Hotel in Hell's Kitchen this weekend instead set up tents outside the West 57th Street building.

Their protest prompted showdowns with NYPD cops that continued into Monday and calls for solidarity from advocates, who argued the Brooklyn shelter is inhumane.

"After being forced to choose between the atrocious conditions at Red Hook Cruise terminal and the street, our immigrant neighbors are going to be camping out of Hotel Watson," tweeted Washington Square Park Mutual Aid.

"Apartments not shelters. Permanent housing not detention camps."

City officials this weekend began to move asylum seekers who are single men to Brooklyn Cruise Terminal to make space for more migrant families.

The 1,000-bed shelter is the city's fifth large-scale facility for an influx of migrants who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, largely to escape political chaos in Venezuela.

But asylum seekers were unhappy with conditions at the new shelter, which they said had only basic beds, lack of adequate heating and few bathrooms, ABC7 first reported.

City Hall officials disputed those assertions. They said the building is heated and temperature-controlled, with about 85 to 90 toilets and assigned storage spaces for every person housed there.

In a statement to Patch, spokesperson Fabien Levy said the city is surpassing its "moral obligations" by giving asylum seekers shelter, food, health care, education and a host of other services.

"The facilities at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will provide the same services as every other humanitarian relief center in the city, and the scheduled relocations to Brooklyn Cruise Terminal this weekend took place as planned," he said. "We remain in serious need of support from both our state and federal governments."

NYPD cops had blocked off streets near the shelter Monday, according to several reports.

City officials argued that officers had only responded Sunday after people who were not asylum seekers rushed the hotel. Advocates, however, said the showdown that continued in to Monday came down to opposition against a looming NYPD sweep that would round up migrants to send to Brooklyn.