NYPD ramps up security at Staten Island migrant shelter as police brace for over 2,000 protesters
Cop cars and barricades surrounded a controversial Staten Island Catholic school-turned-migrant-shelter Sunday — as police said they are bracing for a rally Monday that could bring more than 2,000 protesters.
Many demonstrators outside the former St. John Villa Academy in Arrochar have claimed they are not anti-immigrant, just concerned about the potential for crime and angry at city officials for shipping migrants into their neighborhood with little warning.
“The government has to stop doing this to our communities in secret and stop lying about it when they’re confronted,” said Scott Herkert, 53, who has lived next to the school for 22 years and was among about a dozen demonstrators outside it Sunday. “This is a total disruption of my life.”
But there were times Sunday when the gathering on Landis Avenue took a decidedly anti-immigrant bent — as did several protests held at the same site last week.
Concert speakers pointed at the shelter Sunday blared country songs such as Toby Keith’s “Stays in Mexico,” while some protesters screamed, “You’re not welcome here!”
“Attention all illegal aliens! Please stay inside of your sector! If you are caught outside of your sector, a citizens arrest will be made,” screeched Peter DiMiceli, a 49-year-old contractor from the borough, through a megaphone.
“You’re not welcome here! You are trespassing! Your enemies of the state!” he continued. “We the people of Staten Island say not now, not never!”
There were only about 21 migrants in the shelter Sunday, police sources said, although there are provisions for 300.
More than 1,000 protesters flooded the Staten Island neighborhood Friday, and police sources say they’re expecting more than twice as many Monday.
That worries some officers, who told The Post that demonstrators were so amped up Friday night that they were threatening to storm the facility.
“We’re afraid — we don’t know what can happen,” said Wulberto Fernandez, a 30-year-old Venezuelan migrant who snuck away from the facility for a few minutes with his wife, 26-year-old Alejandra Raaz.
“I am afraid they will jump us and beat us,” added Fernandez, who said he and his wife left behind their two young daughters and son to trek through the jungle for 28 days before reaching Mexico, then Texas, then being bused to New York.
His wife said, “They’re yelling at night, things like, ‘All the immigrants, get out of here!’
“We feel bad about that. We know we are not wanted here.”
The couple said they much preferred their last digs, an Econo Lodge in midtown Manhattan.
There, they had their own room. At the former school, they sleep in an auditorium lined with cots.
When asked why they came to Staten Island, the pair said they had no other option.
Asked where they’d like to go, Wulberto answered, “Anywhere else. … If the Lord permits.”
Protester Scott LoBaido, a 58-year-old activist artist, said he planned to be out on the street every night “until we scare these people out of here.
“There are other places they can go! Not in this neighborhood!” LoBaido said. “This place is ground zero, a middle-class residential neighborhood with four schools just steps away. Why would you send them here? You got Rikers with all these beautiful facilities, all empty, all ready to go. Why is that not happening?”
Staten Island officials have tried to block migrants from moving into the facility for weeks. When that failed, five politicians requested authorities set an 11 p.m. nightly curfew on the migrants, thousands of whom have flooded New York City each week since spring 2022.
The city’s migrant influx has forced local officials to scramble to open makeshift shelters and put families up in hotels as they arrive.
Nearly 60,000 migrants are currently in the care of the city, officials have said.
