Hundreds of Staten Islanders heeded the call of homegrown artist and activist Scott LoBaido earlier this week, and turned out to protest plans to convert Island Shores in Midland Beach, a former senior assisted living facility, into a migrant shelter.
LoBaido, who is opposed to the shelter, urged his “troops” via social media to attend the Aug. 12 rally in opposition to the shelter in the parking lot across from the facility at 1111 Father Capadonno Park. The shelter is expected to open in the fall.
Flanked by Borough President Vito Fossella, state Senator Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island), City Councilman David Carr (R-Mid-Island), and State Assemblymember Michael Reilly (R-South Shore), as well as community activists, LoBaido said that it was high time to display “some patriotism” and to show up in mass at rallies.
“You got to effing vote,” LoBaido pleaded passionately. “And don’t give me, ‘my vote don’t count.’ That’s why New York City is in the crap hole because too many of us say, well, ‘we’re going to lose.'”
The rally came at a time when the city announced that more than 100,000 asylum seekers had arrived since last year wanting a better life. Most are from South America and are in need of shelter and basic resources. The city has set up shelters throughout the city and is helping the new arrivals get processed by immigration.
In an effort to house the newly-arrived migrants, the city has opened 201 new shelter sites across the five boroughs — utilizing public space like parking lots and parks, while also teaming up with non-profits with available capacity for temporary housing.
While many New Yorkers are looking to help these newcomers resettle, there is strong opposition among conservatives, particularly Republicans in areas such as Staten Island. A number of attendees at the rally hoisted Trump flags.
LoBaido told the crowd not to fall for video footage on mainstream media showing mothers carrying babies across the river, claiming that the newcomers were largely “fighting-age men.”
“Send them back to defend their country. And if not, put them in Central Park where all these bleeding heart liberals are,” he said.
Elected officials and community activists hammered President Joe Biden, Governor Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, and the “radical left socialist Democratic Party” for failing to keep Americans safe from “criminals.”
Despite the right-wing rhetoric, the notion that undocumented immigrants commit more violent crimes than U.S. citizens has been repeatedly debunked. There are several studies that have been conducted across the nation that say otherwise.
Lanza said the Democrats’ call to show compassion for the migrants was “idiocy” while Staten Islanders had to work multiple jobs to pay their mortgage.
“Where’s [the Democrats’] compassion when they make the cost of food almost unaffordable?” Lanza asked. “Where’s their compassion when they make the cost of everything we need for our children and our families unaffordable?”
Assemblymember Michael Tannousis (R-East Shore/Brooklyn) said he was caught off guard when the city informed him about the shelter.
“On a Friday, at 5 p.m. on a Friday, we received an email from a city agency telling us that this location will be a migrant shelter,” Tannousis said. “Not a phone call. Not an invite to a meeting, not an invite to a discussion. An email at 5 o’clock. That is how we are being treated in this city.”
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who ran against Eric Adams as the Republican nominee for Mayor in 2021, expressed concern that migrants crossing the border didn’t have to undergo the strict vetting process his ancestors faced when coming through Ellis Island.
“How dare you, Eric Adams, insult our grandparents and great-grandparents by conjuring up the image of Ellis Island?” Sliwa asked.
He further claimed, “These are illegals. There are no vetting process. Nothing about criminal backgrounds. Nothing about their medical condition, no vaccines.”
Sliwa would be arrested on Aug. 16 during a similar demonstration in Queens at a migrant shelter after he and other demonstrators illegally trespassed on the property.
A tipping point
New York City is facing difficulty housing and covering the cost of the new arrivals, and local politicians—both Democrats and Republicans—have been pleading with President Joe Biden for aid.
In a speech on Aug. 9, Mayor Adams said the city had reached its breaking point and expected to spend as much as $12 billion by mid-2025. The mayor blamed the unprecedented influx on a “broken” immigration system.
“As I declared nearly a year ago, we are facing an unprecedented state of emergency,” the mayor said. “The immigration system in this nation is broken. It has been broken for decades. Today, New York City has been left to pick up the pieces.”
However, Adams is still embracing the immigrants upon their arrival.
“America’s the only country on the globe where you’re told to embrace your culture as you embrace your new homeland called America. That is our secret weapon. We’re so proud of that and we’re going to continue to uplift all groups in this country, even our new arrivals known as our asylum seekers,” he said at flag raising ceremony in of honor of Peru this week.
Staten Islander Thea, who did not what to provide her last name, said the influx of migrants had to stop.
“They don’t belong here. This community, Midland Beach, is still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Sandy. I’ve lost my home and everything I owned,” Thea said. “We’re still struggling…It’s outrageous!”
Thea also said that she had friends who had lived in Island Shores and it wasn’t fair that asylum seekers are now taking their place.
In a letter issued on Sept. 26, 2022, Island Shores informed the residents that its parent organization, Homes for the Homeless (HFH), was considering selling the four-story structure to “focus on its core mission of serving homeless families” and that residents had to move out by March 2023. The letter also stated that the preferred buyer was a “senior operator.”
But, according to Councilman Carr, HFH, founded in 1986 as a public-private partnership consisting of city government, private business, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, took the property off the market.
Carr said he even referred several interested buyers to the agency.
When Carr got wind of rumors that the residence would become a migrant shelter, he repeatedly asked HFH if there was any truth to it, which, he said, HFH denied.
“Now, low and behold, over the weekend, this last weekend, I got a notice from the city, not from Homes for the Homeless, but from the city that they’re gonna use this as a migrant shelter,” Carr said. On Aug. 7, Carr and his Republican colleagues sent a letter to city officials objecting to the plans, pointing out that the facility “was an important corner stone in our senior care system.”
According to Carr, HFH was also going to be the contracted provider.
“It says to me that I haven’t been spoken to in good faith,” Carr said. “And it raises legitimate questions amongst the community, what was really their long-term plan or intentionality here? Did they think they were gonna get a buyer? Did they seriously search for a buyer, and now we’re in the situation where they’re gonna get a profitable contract from the city of New York to operate this kind of a use here.”
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