FASTER, PLEASE: The Beginning of the End of New York’s Migrant Crisis.
On February 24, New York mayor Eric Adams announced that the Roosevelt Hotel will wind down its migrant operations, which will cease in June. Since May 2023, the once-glitzy Roosevelt has served as the city’s central processing facility for some 173,000 migrants that arrived in New York seeking shelter. Coming on the heels of announced closures for dozens of other migrant shelters, the news signals welcome relief for New Yorkers, a potential end to the migrant crisis. But it’s only the beginning of the end.
The Roosevelt Hotel, long known as Madison Avenue’s Grande Dame for the elegance of its neoclassical lobby, crystal chandeliers, and limestone-and-marble clad exterior, once attracted celebrities and hosted political campaigns. In 2000, the Pakistani government purchased the property, maintaining it as an asset of the publicly owned Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).
In December 2020, heavy economic losses from the Covid-19 pandemic forced the hotel to shut its doors. As graffiti covered the building’s ground-level limestone and 450 union jobs hung in the balance, the city’s powerful hotel workers’ union urged the Pakistani government and elected officials to reopen the facility. Adams, who benefitted from the union’s early endorsement in 2021, vowed to repay the favor, saying on the campaign trail, “You have been my first major union endorsement, I never forget my first. You are my love.”
By May 2023, the persistent weekly arrival of thousands of migrants offered the mayor a chance to make good on his promise: a $220 million, three-year contract to convert all of the hotel’s 1,025 rooms for use as a migrant shelter, starting at a nightly rate of $202, with a minimum guaranteed income for PIA equivalent to 1.5 years of use as a migrant shelter. Dubbed the “new Ellis Island,” the Roosevelt became the venue where migrants applied for shelter placements, were screened for health hazards, located their relatives, and accessed legal aid for their asylum cases.
Now that the minimum-income period has passed, Adams has taken advantage of the contract’s early cancellation provision, which requires four months’ notice. In 2023, Pakistani reporting on the deal noted that the hotel would be returned to PIA in the same condition as before its use as a shelter. Ostensibly, the city will be on the hook for renovating the decrepit building in the months ahead. Early this year, the Pakistani government accelerated plans to sell or redevelop the hotel, perhaps knowing that the shelter contract would not last for the full three years.
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