By Javier Otazu |
New York (EFE).- The Mayor’s Office of New York is offering free plane tickets to other destinations in the United States to immigrants who want to leave the city voluntarily, in an almost desperate attempt to decongest the city in the face of a constant flow from the Spring 2022 has brought 133,400 people to the Big Apple, according to municipal figures.
“We have opened more than 210 emergency shelters in response to the crisis, and we have simply run out of room. As there are no signs of decompression in the immediate future, we have established a center (for immigrants to choose) to relocate,” a spokesperson for the New York City Mayor’s Office told EFE.
“The city is going to redouble its efforts to buy tickets for immigrants and help them take the next step in their journey,” they continued, and specified that the “screening center” is located in the Roosevelt Hotel, a historic hotel converted months ago. in immigration operations center.
New York, on the edge
Although the press is prohibited from entering the Roosevelt Hotel, it is easy to talk to the dozens of immigrants who crowd at the entrance in search of information.
Héctor P., who comes from Colombia, has been offered a one-way plane ticket to Denver, but he protests: “What have I missed in Denver? I don’t know anyone there”, so for the moment he has refused, but he has not completely discarded the idea, because “here in New York there are many of us for few jobs”.
File photograph showing immigrants waiting on a street after their expulsion from a hotel, in New York (USA). EFE/ Ángel Colmenares
At his side, José Luis S., an Ecuadorian, recounts a similar experience: in his case, he was offered tickets “to Denver, Chicago and Florida,” but he also rejected it, because when he asked if the ticket was accompanied by a job offer received a refusal.
At the Roosevelt gate, everyone knows a friend or close person to whom they have offered a flight, and only those who have family in other cities are considering the idea.
The offer of free flights is in addition to what the city already made in February of free bus trips: then, New York had received 45,000 immigrants and several hundred of them – official figures were never disclosed – left on buses paid for by the Mayoralty to several cities, in some cases as far as Canada, creating a political problem in the neighboring country due to its lax reception rules.
Increasingly difficult for singles
Héctor and José Luis have just been expelled from a Long Island City shelter in application of a recent directive to limit their stay in municipal facilities to sixty days in order to make room for other newcomers.
Although the Mayor’s Office has not specified it, it is evident that they are giving priority to families with children in their care, and it is common to see groups of children in the mornings leaving hotels and shelters heading to schools, where Hispanics usually have support from bilingual teachers who help them in their English immersion courses.
But the authorities are being much harsher with single immigrants, whom they have begun to evict from their shelters, according to several testimonies.
In recent days a rumor has circulated that, once the roofs have been exhausted to accommodate new immigrants, who despite everything continue to arrive, the Mayor’s Office is considering the option of using tents as an alternative, an idea that has angered the immigrant aid organizations for appearing just at the gates of winter.
And although the Mayor’s Office has not confirmed what criteria it will use to send immigrants to a tent or what type of tents they will be -individual or large collective tents-, it has not denied the news: “All options are on the table,” they said in a message sent to EFE.
2023-10-29 13:00:00
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