NYC is shutting down volunteer-led Port Authority welcome center for migrants

Power Malu, pictured here helping a child, says the city is cutting volunteers out of the new migrant center.

New York City is shutting down a key migrant welcome center inside the Port Authority bus terminal, and rerouting new arrivals to a city-established intake operation at The Roosevelt Hotel.

But leaders of volunteer groups who have assisted thousands over the last nine months say they are being cut out of the process.

"They're going to have their way, which is basically creating a welcome center where we're not welcome,” said Power Malu, one of the leaders of Artists Athletes Activists, which has coordinated transportation, food and shelter for migrants at the bus depot and the city’s major airports.

The Port Authority welcome center emerged as a crucial hub for thousands of newly arriving immigrants who have made their way to the five boroughs after crossing the southern U.S. border — at times, after being bused to the city by Republican governors. Aid workers there stepped in to assist the migrants with food, medical care, guidance and legal assistance, funded by donations and filling gaps in the city’s fraying social safety net.

Leaders of those same groups said they will continue serving newly arriving migrants, but without a central hub, for now. Malu said his group will offer a “mobile help desk” as it searches for a new location.

But Malu blasted the city’s decision to exclude the volunteers who have been serving migrants for more than a year, often in the absence of city agencies.

"There's no way that you can justify shutting down operations here, and opening another so-called 'welcome center' and not welcoming the people that have really been putting themselves on the line to help the migrants,” Malu said. "Since day one we've been picking up the pieces.”

The city will now direct migrants arriving by bus to an “Arrival Center” that will soon open at the Roosevelt Hotel on West 45th Street, thereby “streamlining” the intake process for shelter and other services, said Adams’ spokesperson, Fabien Levy.

“We're grateful to all of the volunteers who have stepped up throughout this crisis and appreciate their continued commitment to supporting asylum seekers at other ports of entry across the five boroughs,” Levy said.

But last week, when asked about migrants arriving at the city’s airports, Levy blamed “a network of activists,” who he said were “organizing large-scale arrivals of asylum seekers to New York City via plane, bus, and other modes of transportation — taking advantage of city and state laws and luring them here with false promises.”

The MTA confirmed it will provide buses from the terminal to the hotel.

"Given the city's request for emergency assistance, MTA buses have been provided as directed by city officials while discussions continue regarding reimbursement for costs,” said MTA spokesperson Joana Flores in an emailed statement. The move is not expected to affect regular bus service.

Levy echoed Adams’ repeated calls for more assistance from the state and federal government, with the cost of housing and serving the newly-arriving migrants, estimated to reach $4 billion over the next two years.

The new Roosevelt Hotel plan marks the latest location where city agencies are attempting to meet with migrants and connect them to shelter, schools and services. It’s one of dozens of hotels citywide drafted into the effort to house tens of thousands of people arriving in New York City with few existing ties.

The city has also turned to a cruise terminal; large, refugee-style tents and school gymnasiums, facing resistance from community residents and local lawmakers at every turn.

Meanwhile, the relationship between the Adams administration and volunteer aid groups has soured — punctuated by a dispute over moves to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal and the sweep of migrants staying on a nearby sidewalk earlier this year.

City Hall estimates that 65,000 migrants have made use of city homeless shelters over the past year, leading to an unprecedented rise in the shelter population and a scramble to find available facilities. Adams has urged President Joe Biden, Congress and state lawmakers to provide logistical and financial support.

“New York City is being overwhelmed by the financial and number burden associated with the national problem that has been placed on New Yorker's laps,” he said Tuesday during an interview on NY1. “We are not getting the support that we deserve here in New York City.”

Clayton Guse contributed reporting.