‘This place deserves to be shut down’: Migrant hotel employee reveals the ‘free for all’ of drugs, sex and violence inside New York City’s The Row since it was closed to tourists to make room for border crossers
- An ex-employee of the Row Hotel in New York has exposed the appalling state of the hotel rooms occupied by newly arrived migrants in the city all at city expense
- Carlos Arellano described the establishment as chaotic, with rampant drug use, sexual activity, and violence, and he believes it should be closed down
- Hotel’s 1,300 rooms spanning 28 floors have been allocated almost entirely to accommodate migrants, with the city paying a nightly rate of $500 for their stay
A former worker at New York’s Row Hotel has come forward to reveal the disgusting conditions migrants newly arrived in Manhattan are keeping their hotel rooms, which the city is footing the bill for.
Carlos Arellano, who no longer works for the once luxury hotel, has described the premises as a ‘free for all’ of drugs, sex and violence and should be shut down.
Almost all of the 1,300 rooms set across 28 floors of the hotel have been turned over to host migrants, with the city paying $500-a-night for the migrants to be housed.
Video and photographs shot by Arellano show rooms occupied by 5,000 migrants have become completely trashed, full of garbage, with clothes strewn everywhere together with drink bottles and food boxes lining the floors.
Carlos Arellano, left, who no longer works for the once luxury hotel, has described the premises as a ‘free for all’ as drugs, sex and violence
The worker revealed the disgusting conditions migrants newly arrived in the city are keeping their hotel rooms, which the city is footing the bill for
Video and photographs shot by Arellano show rooms that have become completely trashed, full of garbage, with clothes strewn everywhere
Drink bottles and food boxes line the floors having been tossed about by the migrants
Arellano no longer works at the hotel but says it was an uncomfortable experience to work there
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZcXMOfW8bzA%3Frel%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26hl%3Den-US
Many of the migrants who are being put up at the hotel also congregate outside on the sidewalk making it extremely uncomfortable for locals and vacationers who are often in the area to see Broadway shows or to visit nearby Times Square.
The hotel is no longer open to regular guests and is solely for migrants who have trekked over the southern border and are awaiting immigration hearings.
Some of the migrants have been accused of drinking all day, smoking marijuana, having sex in stairwells and causing fights, several hotel employees have claimed.
In one instance, Arellano claims to have found a ten-year-old girl who had been left drunk in her hotel room with her parents nowhere to be found.
‘Every day, we find about ten kids alone in their hotel rooms, either drinking or doing drugs. Weapons will be in the room. But we’re not allowed to go in there. We’re not allowed to take anything from them. It’s basically a free-for-all in this hotel,’ he told Fox News.
Arellano also said that he had witnessed violence in the street and a number of incidents involving staff.
‘Just a lot of people who are very there, they don’t appreciate what they have. And they come here with the mindset of the way they live back at their home country, and they think there’s no rules or no laws to be followed here,’ Arellano said.
The former worker also says that anything the migrants desire is being given to them.
‘Everything from doctors visits to doctors visits is paid for. Car seats, cribs for newborns. There’s at least 2-3 babies a week being born at this hotel.
‘The migrants have destroyed the rooms. Housekeeping is there all week. They’ll clean it and by the end of the night it’s kids getting drunk together. There’s multiple guns too. This hotel was meant to be a family hotel,’ Arellano explained.
Migrants who arrived in New York City from the border have been housed temporarily in this luxury Manhattan hotel – The Row close to the tourist hotspot of Times Square
The migrants appear to have trashed their rooms leaving stains on the carpet together with drink cans and bottles everywhere
Arellano alleges many of the migrants stay in their rooms and just get drunk all day long
One text message sees concern over a young child that was drunk and had been abandoned
In another instance an intruder was carrying a knife/machete having entered the building
He also noted how there was little to no consequences for those involved in antisocial behavior with the common solution simply to move them to another migrant hotel somewhere in the city.
‘If they are kicked out of the hotel, they get sent to a processing center at Port Authority where they get given a second hotel. So, say a husband decides to beat his wife up. He will get kicked out, and they will just process him into a single men’s hotel.
‘So if you break the law, it’s not “We’re going to report it to the proper authorities.” It’s “Let’s give you a second or third hotel room, and you still stay in the city,”‘ Arellano explained.
Even when culprits are singled out for bad behavior, there is often no way to verify their true identity.
‘We find fake passports, fake Social Security cards, all kinds of fake documents in this hotel every day,’ Arellano told Fox.
‘This place deserves to be shut down. [Workers] fear for their life every day, as well as I did,’ he said. ‘The City of New York do not know what they’re doing and it’s only going to get worse from here.’
A luxury hotel in the heart of New York City is being ‘trashed’ by migrants – who have been accused of drinking all day, smoking marijuana, having sex in stairwells and causing fights, employee Filipe Rodriguez. He has shared photos of trashed and filthy hotel rooms
Rodriguez said: ‘The form in which they keep their rooms is horrendous. They don’t clean it, they don’t fold their clothes. They’re hoarding clothes, they’re hoarding whatever they can hoard.’
Some of the images shared included ‘good food’ sitting out to rot in trash bags because ‘the migrants don’t want to eat it’. ‘The chaos that we see at the Row today is [caused] by migrants being drunk, drinking all day, smoking marijuana [and] consuming drugs,’ Rodriguez said.
Migrants housed at The Row, where rooms used to cost up to $719 a night have classic Manhattan skyline views from their bedroom windows
Across the city, hotels like the Roosevelt that served tourists just a few years ago are being transformed into emergency shelters after the end of Title 42, which had allowed federal officials to turn away asylum seekers from the border with Mexico.
Many of the hotels are within walking distance from Times Square, the World Trade Center memorial site and the Empire State Building.
A legal mandate requires the city to provide shelter to anyone who needs it. Even so, Adams says the city is running out of room for migrants and has sought financial help from the state and federal governments.
Another of the hotels being used is the Holiday Inn, located in Manhattan’s Financial District. A few months ago, signs in the lobby windows of the 50-story, 500-room bankrupt hotel said it was closed.
In February, US Bankruptcy Judge Philip Bentley approved the hotel’s application to sign a contract which will see the establishment house migrants to the tune of $190 a night – a fee that will total $100,000 a day for taxpayers.
Scott Markowitz of Tarter Krinsky & Drogin, attorneys for the hotel’s owner, said reopening as a city-sponsored shelter made financial sense. The deal will bring in around $10.5 million into the Holiday Inn’s coffers over the next 14 months, reports Bloomberg.
If migrants are still in the hotel after the contract expires, the city will be required to pay Holiday Inn a whopping $750 per night.
Rockland has issued a state of emergency, which means that migrants traveling to the cities in the area will be banned from housing migrants. Pictured: A bus, carrying the migrants from Texas, arrives in Port Authority bus station of New York on May 3
NYC mayor Eric Adams has announced many of the city’s closed hotels – including the historic Roosevelt hotel (pictured) in Manhattan – will be reopened and turned into migrant shelters to deal with an anticipated influx of asylum seekers in the coming weeks
The Roosevelt hotel (main lobby pictured in 1924) near Grand Central Terminal served as election headquarters for New York Governor Thomas Dewey, who in 1948 was said to have wrongly announced from the Roosevelt that he had defeated Harry Truman for president
‘They rent out every room at the hotel at a certain price every night,’ Markowitz said, adding that it is bringing ‘substantially more revenue’ than normal operations would have brought in.
It’s not new for the city to turn to hotels for New Yorkers without homes when shelters and other options weren’t available.
During the pandemic, group shelters made it difficult to comply with social distancing rules, prompting the city to rent out hundreds of hotel rooms as quasi COVID wards. As the pandemic eased, the city became less reliant on hotels.
That changed as thousands of migrants began arriving by bus last year. And that will continue to happen after the end of Title 42.
The Watson Hotel on West 57th Street, which used to receive rave reviews for its rooftop pool and proximity to Central Park, is now being used to house migrant families.
‘It is our moral and legal obligation to provide shelter to anyone who needs it,’ the city’s Department of Social Services said in a statement.
‘As such, we have utilized, and will continue to utilize, every tool at our disposal to meet the needs of every family and individual who comes to us seeking shelter.’
The Roosevelt Hotel first opened last week as a welcome center providing legal and medical information and resources, officials said.
It also will then open 175 rooms for families with children, then expand the number of rooms to 850. The city said another 150 other rooms will be available to other asylum seekers.
‘When you offer people something like a hotel room, you´re much more likely to get a positive response to it,’ said David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, adding that the rooms provide ‘privacy and dignity.’
But Giffen said hotels won’t address the greater problem of a lack of affordable, permanent housing.
‘What’s behind all of this (is) that we have such a failed housing system that people who have lower incomes end up using the shelter system as the de facto housing system,’ he said.
‘And then the shelter system doesn’t have enough beds so we´re using the hotels as a de facto shelter system.’
Before the surge in asylum seekers, the city was dealing with increased homelessness, packed shelters and a dearth of affordable housing.
New York even announced a plan to send hundreds of migrants to hotels in suburban Orange and Rockland counties across the Hudson River, angering local leaders.
The Watson Hotel on West 57th Street, which used to receive rave reviews for its rooftop pool and proximity to Central Park, is now being used to house migrant families. PicturedL: Migrants were living outside the hotel in January 20, 2023
This bankrupt Holiday Inn in Manhattan’s Financial District is being paid over $10 million by the city to house migrants
DailyMail.com previously reported on what was going on at The Row in January but it seems conditions have worsened since then.
Another hotel employee Filipe Rodriguez has called the situation a ‘disgrace’ and shared videos and photos of the chaos, which included ‘good food’ sitting out to rot in trash bags because ‘the migrants don’t want to eat it.’
‘The chaos that we see at the Row today is [caused] by migrants being drunk, drinking all day, smoking marijuana [and] consuming drugs,’ Rodriguez told Fox News.
Alcohol is prohibited in all migrant shelters but the employees say they often find empty beer and liquor bottles in the rooms and hallways.
‘The form in which they keep their rooms is horrendous. They don’t clean it, they don’t fold their clothes. They’re hoarding clothes, they’re hoarding whatever they can hoard,’ he said.
‘There was a lot of stuff that I had to be responsible for. Fortunately for the migrants, they got the government of the United States to hand them carte blanche to pretty much do as they wish. They go in and out of the hotel at will,’ he said.
Rodriguez added that thousands of dollars worth of taxpayer-funded food is being wasted with migrants throwing it out because they insist on cooking in their rooms on hotplates, which is also a danger to themselves and others staying at the hotel.
‘They said they don’t like it,’ he said about the migrants and hotel food. ‘This is all food that is going to waste. This is insane.’
Rodriguez also pointed out that there has also been several of ‘domestic violence’ incidents among migrants, with one even fighting a security guard at the hotel. On top of that, some young people have been ‘having sex in the stairs’.
Rodriguez shared another photo of a hotel room strewn with clutter and trash
Rodriguez showed bags of fresh food being thrown away because the migrants don’t want it
Rodriguez added that thousands of dollars worth of taxpayer-funded food is being wasted with migrants throwing it out because they insist on cooking in their rooms on hotplates
In better times, The Row on 8th Avenue between 44th and 45th streets was a four star hotel in the heart of Manhattan’s Broadway Theater District boasting classic NYC views, a full fitness studio, a communal workspace equipped with Apple’s $2,000 iMac desktops and a lounge where ‘hand-stretched’ pizzas are $20.
Its bar menu boasts cocktails costing up to $19 each. A glass of champagne is $22. Room prices vary depending on the size – but the executive suite is $719 a night.
But now New York City is using the hotel to exclusively to house migrants, some of whom are seeking asylum.
The city is using the hotel staff at The Row to work there, but the city has yet to disclose how much taxpayer money is being used to house migrants.
Nearly 61,000 migrants have flooded into New York City in the last few months and have been housed at just 14 hotels.
Most of the migrants have been arriving on buses from border states, including Texas, as a result of President Joe Biden’s border crisis.
People gathered outside the Row Hotel on Eight Avenue where reports of debauchery and wasted food meant for sheltered migrants who temporarily reside at the hotel surfaced following a whistleblower
Two migrant children play with toys outside of The Row Hotel, seen earlier this year
The trendy hotel began housing migrants last summer as thousands arrived from Texas
Visitors to The Row have access to a fully-equipped fitness center (pictured)
This is how The Row used to look when regular tourists used to stay during vacations to NYC
Last week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams called for migrants to be sent to every major city in America as he continues to try and solve the Big Apple’s overwhelming immigrant crisis.
The mayor has reopened many of the city’s closed hotels and turned them into migrant shelters to deal with an influx of asylum seekers in the past months and expected arrivals in the coming weeks.
Adams said the facilities being used, including hotels, will cost the city an estimated $4.2 billion in 2023 and 2024 alone.
On CBS’ Face the Nation last Sunday, Adams said that this is ‘not a burden on one city’ and proposed a shared solution.
The mayor revealed New York City had received 70,000 migrant asylum-seekers since August and 42,000 are still in the city, with the crisis only expected to worsen after the end of Title 42.
‘We have 108,000 cities, villages, towns,’ he said. ‘If everyone takes a small portion of that, and if it’s coordinated at the border to ensure that those who are coming here to this country in a lawful manner is actually moved throughout the entire country, it is not a burden on one city.’
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has called for migrants to be sent to every major city in America as he continues to try and solve the Big Apple’s immigrant crisis
The mayor has reopened many of the city’s closed hotels and turned them into migrant shelters to deal with an anticipated influx of asylum seekers in the coming weeks
Adams claimed that NYC does not have the resources capable of handling the wave of migrants sent to the city by bus by Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The Democrat, was reportedly dropped from President Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign advisory board after criticizing the White House over the catastrophe.
Adams strayed from the Democrat party line in April to blast: ‘The president and the White House have failed this city.’
He instead turned his ire toward Republican legislators.
‘The problem is that Republicans for far too many years have failed to deal with real immigration reform,’ he continued. ‘This is a national issue. No city should … be going through this, including El Paso, Brownsville [in Texas].
‘When I went to El Paso, Texas, and saw what was happening there, I raised the same concern. This should not be the burden of Chicago, Washington, Houston, Denver and New York City. That is what we want to focus on.’
New York, the country’s largest city, said it will cost billions of dollars to deal with its intake of migrants who have recently crossed the US-Mexico border. Officials say more than 1,000 migrants arrive daily in New York.
Adams claimed that New York City does not have the resources capable of handling the wave of migrants sent to the city by bus by Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
Asylum seekers are held prior to being transferred via city bus from Port Authority bus terminal to housing facilities in the Bronx and Queens on May 15, 2023
Three weeks ago, heads of city agencies were asked to provide a list of potential shelters: among the suggestions were the Flatiron Building, tents in Central Park, and hangars at JFK airport.
Earlier this month, Adams announced that he had signed Executive Order 402, suspending aspects of the ‘Right to Shelter’ law, enacted in 1981.
Under the new rules, New York City will no longer have to provide migrant families with their own room and can direct them to a communal shelter instead.
‘This is not a decision taken lightly and we will make every effort to get asylum seekers into shelter as quickly as possible as we have done since day one,’ said Fabian Levy, City Hall spokesperson.
But the Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless condemned the decision, saying it was ‘prolonging suffering that no human being should experience.’
Adams said in May that the city is looking at opening 20 school gyms to house migrants.
Video footage inside the Beacon School of Excellence in Brooklyn shows rows of cot beds set up in the gymnasium ready to be used by migrants.
Parents of students affected by the move started protesting earlier to raise their concerns about the move.
One shared video of the gym onto their Twitter page, saying: ‘We are not okay having an elementary school full of strangers while our kids sit in their classes! Where’s their safety!?’
Adams has turned several closed New York City hotels into migrant housing facilities, such as the Roosevelt hotel which was closed three years ago. Another was the bankrupt Holiday Inn in the Financial District.
The city has opened up more than 140 shelters since the city began receiving asylum seekers.
Two weeks ago, Adams said that nearly 50 percent of the city’s hotel rooms are filled with migrants, according to NBC New York.
Adams said earlier in May: ‘It is not about the asylum-seekers and migrants, all of us came from somewhere to pursue the American Dream.
‘It is the irresponsibility of the Republican Party in Washington for refusing to do real immigration reform, and it’s the irresponsibility of the White House for not addressing this problem.’
Hours before Title 42 was lifted, hundreds of migrants lined up on U.S. soil in Yuma to begin the process of applying for asylum
Security forces watched on as migrants tried to enter the U.S. after crossing the Rio Grande River, in Matamoros, Mexico ahead of the end of Title 42
One insider told Politico that the relationship between Adams and the White House ‘has soured’ over the issue. Adams ‘made somewhere between in-artful to stupid comments that were kind of out of bounds’, the Democrat aide said.
A spokesman for the New York City mayor has since said Adams ‘stands ready to help the president with reelection however he can’.
Adams has also attempted to explain his position as simply a disagreement over a single issue, which is not indicative of his broader support for the president.
He said in March: ‘Being the president comes with a menu of items, it doesn’t mean there’s not going to be an item on that menu that I dislike.
‘I dislike what we’re doing around the asylum seekers, but I always say that I believe the president is just a blue-collar president. I’m a blue-collar mayor. I like his policies. I think he’s good for the country — and it doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with him 100 percent on everything.’
He has also insisted ‘Biden is my guy, I want Biden to be the next president’.
Migrants could be housed in an aircraft hangar at JFK airport, some suggested
Tents to house migrants could be put in Central Park under a proposal made on Monday
Another idea was housing migrants in tents at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens
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