NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- Hundreds of migrants were sleeping on the sidewalks around the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Monday morning as space to house them runs out.
The migrants, who appeared to all be single men, were seen lying on the sidewalk at East 45th Street and Vanderbilt Avenue at daybreak, a harrowing scene that stretched for blocks beyond.
There was a tense scene Sunday night when about a dozen of the migrants tried to force their way into the hotel and were pushed back by security.
The NYPD was keeping a watchful eye overnight on the area, where some migrants were also sleeping on buses offered by the city.
The city decided to use the hotel as its main intake center when the federal government's Trump-era Title 42 immigration policy expired back in May. More than 500 migrants are now arriving every day.
None of the men sleeping outside have a bed as they wait for word on the next step in the process. Some have been sleeping on the sidewalks for days.
"I decide to come here to the United States to change the situation of my life," a man from Africa said.
"It is so difficult, so difficult," he said. "But you know, we don’t have any choice. If we have a good situation in our country, we would've stayed there."
"Being in New York City is not what we thought it is," another man said.
It comes as the city is getting ready to open another shelter in the parking lot of the former Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens Village.
City Hall said it's continuing to work to find additional space and that children and families are still being prioritized over single men.
Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, said space is in short supply as hundreds of asylum seekers come to the city every day, with nearly 100,000 people entering the system since last spring.
“Children and families continue to be prioritized and are found a bed every night,” Levy said. “While we at least offered all adults a temporary place to wait off the sidewalks last night, some may have chosen to sleep outside and, in all honesty, New Yorkers may continue to see that more and more as hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive every day.”
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine took to Twitter over the weekend to slam the federal government for not doing more to help the city.
"Can you imagine that there was a refugee crisis in this country, with almost 100k human beings at risk, and the federal gov't didn't mobilize?" Levine tweeted.
"You don't have to imagine it. This is what's happening in New York City right now," he wrote.
He said the city has opened emergency shelters in 186 hotels and other facilities so far and there are still more than 500 migrants arriving daily.
"We have no more hotels. No more vacant facilities that can safely house migrants," he wrote.
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