NYPD tows cars where migrants sleep outside NYC’s ‘new Ellis Island’ hotel
The NYPD towed more than a half-dozen cars outside the Big Apple’s “new Ellis Island” at the Roosevelt Hotel on Thursday – one day after The Post reported that asylum seekers were living in the parked vehicles.
Among the cars hooked up by police tow trucks was a white Mitsubishi Lancer with a flat tire and Washington state plates where at least one migrant has been sleeping and a minivan loaded with blankets.
Gothamist first reported this week that at least four migrants had been bedding down inside the vehicles after getting booted from the crowded hotel, the main intake center for the thousands of migrants flocking to the five boroughs from the US border.
By 2 p.m. eight vehicles had been towed away by police along Vanderbilt Avenue between 45th and 46th streets, with the cars cars also issued parking tickets.
“The car is not mine,” one migrant told The Post as he cleaned out one of the vehicles before it was hooked up.
“A friend sleeps in it but he is working at Wendy’s in Brooklyn,” the man said Thursday. “He told me to do him a favor and take his clothes out so they didn’t get lost.”
Among the other vehicles towed were a black Mazda SUV with Florida license plates, a gray Honda Odyssey with Florida plates and an “Active Firefighter” placard in the windshield, and a Nissan Altima sedan with Minnesota license plates.
“I use it for personal business and to go to work,” the car’s owner said. “I bought it for $3,000. I have it for two months. I haven’t registered it.”
He said he had not been living in the car.
Another migrant from Ecuador who identified himself as Eddie said he bought his Jeep for $2,200 – but admitted it was “poorly parked.”
“I bought it a week and a half now,” Eddie said as he pulled toys out of the vehicle before it was towed. “I have papers to get it registered. I’m going to get a new license in our name because we bought it.”
He also said he did not sleep in the vehicle and stays at the hotel.
However, migrants told Gothamist that they were sleeping in their cars after getting kicked out of the hotel.
“They’re just helping the people who have families, little kids,” 23-year-old Venezuelan migrant Yovani Nieves, who was sleeping inside the Mitsubishi, complained to the outlet. “If you’re a single man they kick you out, send you to the street.”
Hassan Elashkar, who has run a coffee cart on the street for 20 years, was more than happy to see cops tow the illegal cars away.
“These people don’t follow the rules,” Elashkar said of the migrants. “They make it hard for us. There is nowhere to park my truck. I’m supposed to be parking there. I’m happy they are gone.”
He said the migrants also leave a mess on the block.
“In the morning I have to clean up,” he said. “When they get out of their cars they throw the garbage all over the place.”
Said a worker at one local building, “This is clean-up time!
“Do you think I could drive my car like that on the streets? I’d get tickets and probably get arrested too,” he added. “If I have to work and pay my taxes to get everything — so should they.”
Mayor Eric Adams decreed in October that migrants in the five boroughs would have to reapply for shelter and hotel slots every 60 days if they had children with them, and 30 days for single migrants.
About 4,800 asylum seekers were forced from their spots this week as the latest deadline arrived.
The city is now housing and feeding nearly 70,000 migrants who are among the more than 165,000 who have flocked to the city since the spring of 2022.
New York City is among the sanctuary cities in the country and has a right-to-shelter law that requires that anyone who needs a roof over their head should be provided with one.
But the crush of asylum seekers has put the city to the test, as officials continue to scramble to find enough space to house the flood of migrants.
In addition to using hotels and converted shelters at former schools and other buildings, tent cities have been erected at Randall’s Island in Manhattan, the onetime Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens and at Floyd Bennett Field, a former federal airstrip in Brooklyn.
A city official who spoke to Gothamist described the Roosevelt as the city’s “new Ellis Island,” a reference to the federally owned island in New York Harbor that was historically the first stop for immigrants coming to America from Europe, Asia and other parts of the world.
Officials at City Hall referred questions about the towing operation to the NYPD.
A spokesman for the police department said no information was immediately available.
Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy
