Dozens of asylum seekers spent their Saturday night sleeping outside Manhattan's Roosevelt Hotel, battling the heat and rain as the hotel is at full capacity, and the Mayor's Office is working to find suitable accommodations.
Numerous asylum seekers stood in a line that spanned the length of the block on Saturday evening, outside the hotel waiting to enter the city's processing center — a process some of them can only describe in one word: difficult.
The line eventually thinned out throughout the night.
As they waited outside the Roosevelt Hotel, which is owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), on Saturday night to enter the city's intake center, one child dozed off on his mother's shoulder.
In the middle of Midtown, the line circled Vanderbilt Avenue.
"It's just a little chaotic. I come into work today and you can't move. They're in front of the restaurant, they're sitting down. It's not their fault, but it's a little crazy," said Zelka Kalaj, a worker at a nearby pizzeria.
Families boarded a city-provided bus in the midst of the oppressive heat because one Ecuadorian family still had some unanswered questions, ABC7 reported.
"I don't know where they will give us shelter," they said.
The Mayor's Office released a statement saying, "Children and families continue to be prioritised and are found a bed every night. 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 each day."
The basic necessities, like food, are desperately needed by many of the asylum seekers.
While some people are simply relieved to have arrived in the United States, for others, this is not what they anticipated and is not humane.
"We have friends inside, said 'no problem, no people,' but many people," said Abdurakhmon Gaziev from Russia.
Over 93,000 asylum seekers have entered New York City's intake system since spring, prompting the city to encourage migrants to seek placements outside the city. Officials call for urgent assistance from state and federal partners.
The hotel was purchased by PIA and Prince Faisal bin Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in 2000, after which PIA took over Prince Faisal's ownership interest.
The hotel closed in 2020 as a result of ongoing financial losses brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic; it reopened as an asylum-seeker shelter in 2023.
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