Biden’s Tradition of Unconditional Welcome Questioned as New York City Faces Influx of Migrants and Refugees

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Migrants, refugees… facing the exodus fileFaced with an influx of more than 100,000 newcomers over the past year, the city is calling on Joe Biden for help and questioning his tradition of unconditional welcome, drawing criticism from activists and associations on the front line of the crisis.

A setting of a certain old-fashioned splendor in the background of the Mad Men series and films such as French Connection, Wall Street or Malcolm X, the famous Roosevelt Hotel has become for a few weeks the setting of otherwise less glorious scenes, in right in the heart of Manhattan. They undermine the New York aura of a sanctuary city, open to all exiles who have come to seek a protective haven there. Closed by the pandemic and then converted in May into a refuge for asylum seekers who have been showing up in exponential numbers in New York for more than a year, the Roosevelt has been designated by the town hall as the main point of entry into a system municipal shelter which, for the first time, was officially full at the end of July. Hundreds of people were then forced to spend the night massed on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.

Most arrived there after an exhausting and perilous journey through Central America and Mexico, many from Venezuela but also from Haiti or, increasingly, from West Africa. Some took a plane or a bus on their own, or with the assistance of migrant aid organizations, as soon as they crossed the southern border of the United States.

2023-08-20 06:01:03
#York #solidarity #migrants #time #bad #accounts