New York announces closure of immigrant center at famous Roosevelt Hotel

For the past two years, it has been the site of migrant families seeking shelter, legal or medical assistance; the same site with Italian Renaissance-style facades that once served as a set for Hollywood films or was the site of banquets and meetings for New York's top politicians. The processing center at the century-old Roosevelt Hotel , which has served more than 173,000 migrants and asylum seekers since 2023, will close before June, the city's mayor, Eric Adams, announced on Monday.

When an average of 4,000 immigrants a week began arriving in the Big Apple three years ago, many arrived without food, clothing for the cold, a place to sleep or schools for their children and ended up receiving help in the halls of the Roosevelt. The flow was so great that at the time it earned the nickname “the new Ellis Island,” in reference to the city’s historic port of entry for hundreds of thousands of migrants at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Now the announcement of the hotel’s closure comes almost as a victory for the local government, which in a statement defined it as “an important milestone” among all the measures that the city of New York is taking to confront immigration.

“Thanks to the wise policy decisions of our team, we are able to announce the closure of this facility and help even more asylum seekers take the next steps in their journey and look forward to an even brighter future, while saving taxpayers millions of dollars,” Adams said in the press release. In addition to closing the Roosevelt processing center, the mayor also announced that he will close the immigrant shelter located at the same hotel.

More than 232,000 migrants have arrived in the city since the spring of 2022, when Republican governors in states like Texas began sending chartered buses of migrants to so-called sanctuary cities — jurisdictions governed mostly by Democrats who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. But according to City Hall data, the pace of arrivals has slowed considerably since then, with the average for recent months standing at about 350 people per week. If there were 69,000 migrants registered under the city’s care last January, today there are fewer than 45,000 — that is, about 24,000 fewer asylum seekers in its care.

Of these, the mayor's statement highlights that 80% have already taken "the next steps in their journeys," although it is not clear what direction most of these people have taken. In addition, a high percentage have requested or received work permits.

The Roosevelt's closure follows the shuttering of 53 migrant shelters and other facilities between June 2024 and this year. "The planned transfer of admissions functions from the Roosevelt Hotel to other areas of the system, along with the planned closures of 53 additional emergency shelters by June, reflects the Adams Administration's dedication to addressing an international crisis and supporting asylum seekers on their path to the American dream," the City Council said in Monday's statement.

All this effort, according to local authorities, has resulted in savings of more than 5.2 billion dollars, which is just what figures like Elon Musk are aiming to achieve, with his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) working to eliminate any public spending that he considers unnecessary.

Musk himself recently took aim at the multimillion-dollar spending that New York is spending on housing “illegal immigrants” in high-end hotels, when in reality they were funds for disaster relief in the country. After the accusation that the tycoon presented without evidence, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) immediately ordered the suspension of more than 80 million dollars that were used to pay for accommodation and other services for immigrants in the city.

In response to the unexpected suspension of funding, “without notice or explanation,” the city of New York filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, the Treasury Department and the Department of Homeland Security for the suspension of money allocated by Congress last year. “Despite the fact that FEMA had reviewed and approved the city’s related requests, and issued the payments, the defendants took the money without any regard for proper administrative processes,” the lawsuit claims.

While it is unclear what will happen to the migrants who were receiving help or counseling in the Roosevelt’s halls, Molly Schaeffer, the Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Asylum Seeker Operations, said in the same statement that “their work at this humanitarian aid center is far from over.” “Our teams and community partners remain committed to serving all who come into our care,” she said. However, she stressed that the closure of the hotel in downtown Manhattan is “a testament to the tremendous work that has been done to date as we remain steadfastly focused on our mission.”

Immigration advocacy groups, however, are concerned that immigrants may not have or know where to turn for help once Roosevelt closes. “It’s more a question of how this is being planned and what the rollout is and how we’re going to educate people who still need support who are currently in New York City,” Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, told The Wall Street Journal .

It is also alarming that the shelter closures coincide with the anti-immigrant crusade of Donald Trump, whose administration has pressured the Democratic governor to align himself more with the Republican's immigration agenda. The two have cultivated a close relationship in recent months, and two weeks ago the Justice Department asked that the federal corruption case against Adams be dropped .