Volunteer groups who criticized mayor say they’re not wanted at new center
Some grassroots volunteers who have criticized Mayor Adams’ handling of the city’s migrant crisis won’t be welcome at a 24/7 arrival center for asylum seekers that his administration plans to open, the Daily News has learned.
The volunteers in question — who have been on the front lines of the crisis for months — were told by members of the mayor’s team in a Monday night briefing that they cannot help out at the soon-to-launch arrival center, said Power Malu, founder of Artists-Athletes-Activists.
“We asked twice, ‘What about organizations like us?’ But we were told that this is about the mayor coming up with a plan,” said Malu, whose group is among a network of mutual aid organizations that have since last spring assisted migrants at the Port Authority Bus Terminal upon their arrival from border states like Texas.
“Explicitly, they told us, ‘You are not involved in this; we are not putting you on,’ ” Malu added.
Also on the briefing was Adama Bah, an activist with Team TLC NYC, another group that has helped connect migrants with services at Port Authority and other entry points. She corroborated Malu’s retelling of the briefing and said she left it with the impression that the administration won’t accept assistance from groups like hers at the new location.
Asked later Tuesday about the apparent sidelining of some migrant aid groups, Adams said his administration is “doing a complete assessment of all of our volunteers” ahead of the opening of the new site to ensure it is operating in a “structured and organized way.”
“We will make sure that all those who want to assist the asylum seekers get an opportunity to do so,” he said.
Adams told reporters it’s not yet clear where the new center will be located, or who will staff it. But a newly created Office of Asylum Seeker Operations will manage the location, which is expected to replace the Port Authority as a primary destination for asylum seekers when they arrive, Adams said.
Newly arrived migrants will be able to access a range of services at the around-the-clock center, including legal, medical, school enrollment and casework assistance, according to Adams’ office.
Malu’s group does not receive funding from the city, and he said he feels like Adams is refraining from involving his and other grassroots operations in the arrival center because of their history of publicly criticizing the administration’s response to the migrant crisis.
“We are not going to be muzzled or bullied into not saying anything,” he said. “If they don’t welcome us to the table, we’ll create a new table and keep doing our work.”
Malu also said he was confused by the notion that the administration is moving its operations away from the Port Authority to the forthcoming arrival center.
“Most of the time, we’re the only ones there,” Malu said of Port Authority.
The announcement of the 24/7 arrival center comes as more than 30,000 migrants, mostly Latin Americans, remain in the city’s care. They are housed in homeless shelters and large-scale emergency facilities after having fled poverty and violence in their home countries in hopes of obtaining U.S. asylum.
Amid the massive influx, Adams has in recent weeks clashed with some migrant advocates.
Groups like Malu’s have said Adams’ administration isn’t doing enough to help migrants acclimate in the city. They’ve also complained about not receiving funding from the city to support their operations at the Port Authority.
Adams, meantime, has said some of the activists are “agitators” and blamed them for instigating a dayslong migrant demonstration outside the Watson Hotel on W. 57th St. last month.
The protest featured dozens of migrant men who set up a makeshift camp outside the Watson in protest of the administration’s decision to kick them out of their rooms at the hotel in order to accommodate asylum-seeking families with kids instead.
“I’m not even sure they are migrants,” Adams said Feb. 1 of the men. “There are some agitators that I just really think are doing a disservice to the migrants.”
In Tuesday’s news conference, Adams stressed he’s still looking for help from all stakeholders to deal with the migrant crisis.
“We often talk about what we need from the federal and state, but we also need local participation,” he said. “We want that, and we’re going to continue to ask for that.”