Border crossers, who arrived in New York City on buses from Texas, are refusing to leave a luxury Manhattan hotel that city officials had placed them in.
Over the weekend, city officials sought to move migrants out of the Watson Hotel in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan and to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal where Mayor Eric Adams has constructed a massive shelter for new arrivals.
Many of the border crossers staying at the Watson Hotel, paid for by taxpayers, are refusing to leave and have instead set up a homeless encampment outside the hotel. There, they are demanding the city “cancel rent” and provide them with “permanent homes.”
Illegal aliens refuse to leave ritzy hotel digs two blocks from Central Park for a new shelter in Brooklyn. Biden created this entitlement mentality so of course they will continue to demand more and better free stuff and then complain if denied https://t.co/0KZrUrwPHp
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) January 30, 2023
Some open borders activists, assisting the migrants, even suggested to ABC 7 News that new arrivals get placed in some of the city’s most expensive properties without charge.
Another sign posted by border crossers outside the Watson Hotel reads “no to discrimination towards immigrants” while one other reads “We need housing to sleep, we need help please.”
The housing demands come as New Yorkers, particularly working and middle class, grapple with exorbitant rents and skyrocketing home prices that have pushed many out of the city’s five boroughs and hundreds of thousands out of the state altogether.
Nearly 50,000 border crossers have been bused to New York City, a sanctuary jurisdiction, since the spring of last year. Those new arrivals will immediately begin competing for limited housing across the city, pushing the price of rent and homes way up for natives.
Real estate investors are some of the biggest beneficiaries of mass immigration to the United States. Immigration-driven population growth, set to bring the United States population to more than 400 million by 2060, is likely to send housing prices even higher.
A 2017 study published in the Journal of Housing Economics found that “increases in immigration into a metropolitan statistical area are linked with rising rents and home prices in that metropolitan statistical area and neighboring metropolitan statistical areas.”
Republicans in Congress representing New Yorkers — including Rep. Elise Stefanik, Claudia Tenney, Nick Langworthy, Marc Molinaro, Nicole Malliotakis, Andrew Garbarino, Anthony D’Esposito, and Nick LaLota — have been largely silent about the connection between mass immigration and housing costs.
A view from the surroundings of Watson Hotel in Manhattan, New York, United States on January 29, 2023. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A view from the surroundings of Watson Hotel in Manhattan, New York, United States on January 29, 2023. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A view from the surroundings of Watson Hotel in Manhattan, New York, United States on January 29, 2023. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A view from the surroundings of Watson Hotel in Manhattan, New York, United States on January 29, 2023. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images)
Migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images)
Migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images)
Migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images)
Migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images)
Migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images)
A sign is seen as migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
A view from the surroundings of Watson Hotel in Manhattan, New York, United States on January 29, 2023. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images)
Migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images)
Migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images)
Migrants camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Camping tents are pictured outside the Watson Hotel on 57th Street and 9th Avenue. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
