New Yorkers step up for asylum-seekers
NEW YORK — Tonya Roman was working her shift as a cleaner at Port Authority last week when she saw a young volunteer take off his sneakers and give them to a newly arrived migrant who had just stepped off a bus. She was struck by the act.
“It’s like a Jesus moment,” she said. “Who gives the shoes off their feet to a stranger? And I said, ‘I have to do my part.’ ”
Roman, 54, who lives in Newark, N.J., was among those Wednesday morning who stopped by a cordoned-off area of the bus terminal, where volunteers were receiving new arrivals, to donate a rolling cart full of winter clothes that she had brought from home.
The thousands of asylum-seekers who have arrived in New York City since the spring face daunting challenges as they try to rebuild their lives in a new country. Most arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs after a grueling overland trek from South America to the Texas border, where they were then bused north by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and the Democratled city of El Paso.
But their arrivals are being eased somewhat by an outpouring of support from around New York.
While the city has provided shelter, meals and medical services, its response has been at times halting or chaotic. A number of charities and aid groups have stepped in to fill the gaps, distributing badly needed items like winter coats, baby formula and cellphones. Some volunteers are even opening their homes.
At the Port Authority Bus Terminal, about a dozen volunteers have arrived before dawn every day to greet people getting off buses from Texas with sandwiches, fruit and donated clothes.
Early on Wednesday, Ilze Thielmann, 56, was directing volunteers scrambling to greet new arrivals, distribute food and organize donated clothes, diapers and other items. A small area of the bus terminal was guarded by uniformed officers and filled with folding chairs; boxes of apples, bagels, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were at the ready.
“It’s just an outpouring of love; there’s no other way to put it,” said Thielmann, a retired lawyer. She was there helping to coordinate the efforts with her volunteer group, Team TLC NYC, along with Power Malu, 45, who runs the group ArtistsAthletes-Activists, and Adama Bah, a community organizer.
Overcrowded system
Many of the new arrivals were families with young children and would eventually make their way to the nearby Row NYC hotel, where the city has set up an intake center.
Rocio Villarreal Orberson, 38, of Lima, Peru, was among those who arrived Thursday, with her 11-year-old daughter, Fatima, in tow. Villarreal said she fled because of inflation and crime, including extortion by gangs in the market where she had worked.
Upon arrival, she was sent to the Row hotel, where the crowd was now a mix of well-dressed tourists on their way to sight-see in Times Square and migrant parents clutching the hands of wide-eyed children in baggy sweatshirts.
“I’m very grateful,” Villarreal said. “They’ve never left us behind. They gave us blankets. They gave us food. They treated us well. They brought us here without charging us anything.”
More than 21,000 asylum-seekers have moved through the city’s intake system since the spring, and nearly 16,000 of them remain in the city’s care, a spokesperson for City Hall said Friday. The majority were Venezuelans fleeing the country’s economic collapse, crime and political repression.
New York City is unique for having a “right to shelter” law on the books and is housing migrants at dozens of hotels around the city. But the system is severely overcrowded, and by early October, Mayor Eric Adams had declared a state of emergency, saying it could not handle the influx.
It opened an 84,000square-foot tent camp on Randalls Island this past week, although the flow of Venezuelans appears to be slowing after the Biden administration declared Oct. 12 that it would be turning some migrants back.
‘No accountability’
Carlos Briceño, 40, and his 18-year-old son arrived two weeks ago from Carabobo, Venezuela. They had a city-provided room at a midtown hotel, and like many of the migrants were not yet formally authorized to work but desperate to pick up gigs anywhere they could. Having failed so far, they decided to join the volunteers at Port Authority to lend a hand.
“You get here and try to help the others who are coming,” said the younger man, who bears his father’s name.
The migrants face many challenges as they struggle to establish a foothold in a new and expensive city.
Malu, who hails from the Lower East Side and runs a boxing gym, said he and other volunteers had been frantically trying to help those who have had problems in the shelters or who ended up wandering the streets at night when they could not get a bed. He and other members of his group have also hosted migrants in their homes.
Of the shelter system, Malu said that “there’s no accountability, and no one really responds.”
Around the city, piles of donated goods from ordinary New Yorkers are filling up spare rooms in houses of worship, schools, community centers and the offices of elected officials.
When state Sen. Jessica Ramos announced a donation drive for migrants last month, it took just one day for a conference room in her Jackson Heights office to fill up, said Astrid Aune, a spokesperson.
The room has now become a sort of boutique, filled with neatly sorted stacks of clothing, with people coming from around the city as word spread. Sweaters and jackets are particularly sought-after since the weather has begun to turn cold.
“They’re coming through in sandals, kids in the wrong size shoes,” Aune said on a recent weekday as a Venezuelan mother looked through children’s clothing.
Grassroots help
Large organizations such as Catholic Charities, United Way of New York City and the New York Immigration Coalition are working to meet the urgent needs of new arrivals. But there are also smaller, more grassroots efforts underway.
Verde’s Pizza and Pasta House is one of a handful of restaurants near the cluster of hotels on the western edge of Staten Island housing new migrants. Danielle Bongiovanni, 47, runs the shop with her husband and has been making extra pies and pasta dishes to drop off to them.
Local residents have been calling in donations or making them through online orders, and Bongiovanni had printed some out and taped them to the wall alongside a picture of Jesus.
The business just opened last month, and their efforts have generated some grumbling from residents upset about the migrants’ arrival. But Bongiovanni was unapologetic about feeding hungry families.
“It’s not about Republican or Democratic,” Bongiovanni said, in between serving customers. “I’m a Catholic. You try to do good. You help women and children.”
Marlene Markoe-Boyd, 55, read about the pizzeria’s efforts in the newspaper and swung by to make a $60 donation. She also picked up a slice to go.
“I think what they’re doing is beautiful,” she said. “It’s nice to be a part of an effort to welcome our new neighbors.”