‘Too cold’: NYC migrants wait in line 25 hours in near-freezing temperatures for sche
‘Too cold’: NYC migrants wait in line 25 hours in near-freezing temperatures for scheduled ICE meetings
By Kevin Sheehan, Valentina Jaramillo, Jesse O’Neill and Bernadette Hogan
November 23, 2022 3:16pm Updated
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Some migrants had been waiting more than 25 hours, only to not have their appointments honored, they told The Post.William Farrington
Hundreds of migrants have been camping overnight in near-freezing temperatures in a desperate attempt to get a foot inside New York City’s ICE headquarters — as the backlogged immigration system struggles, yet again, to cope with the influx of asylum seekers flowing into the US since President Biden took office.
A growing number of frustrated asylum seekers, including some with babies and young children in tow, told The Post they braved the 34-degree overnight temperatures in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday and Wednesday only to be told their scheduled processing appointments wouldn’t be honored.
“This is how it works. It is no good,” Ecuadorian migrant Stephanie R. told The Post on Wednesday of the haphazard system.
The capricious procedures are just the latest sign of how the Big Apple is straining to accommodate the tens of thousands of migrants that have flooded the city in recent months as the Biden administration grapples with its ongoing border crisis.
In recent days, a makeshift mini-tent city has formed outside 26 Federal Plaza — home to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices — as desperate migrants say their appointments are being ignored and people are instead being served on a first come, first serve basis.
Cardboard boxes, backpacks and blankets were strewn across the concrete in the early hours of Wednesday, according to video shot by Spectrum News NY1, which first reported on the struggles.
By the time the sun rose, Stephanie and her family – including her 5-year-old daughter Evelyn and 23-year-old cousin — had already been waiting 25 hours, to no avail.
The family told The Post they arrived at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday for their scheduled 9 a.m. appointment — but they were shockingly still turned away.
“In the paper it says the appointment is 9 a.m. yesterday but the people from here ask, ‘What time is your appointment?’ I say, 9am. He say, ‘You missed it! Come back tonight! You’re going to have to wait on line tonight to get another appointment,” Stephanie said through a translator.
“I say, missed it? It’s not for 2 and a half hours? I think he is crazy so I wait.”
As they stood outside ICE headquarters for the duration of the day and night, Stephanie’s daughter developed a nasty cough in the chilly temperatures.
“Too cold, I stand and shake. It was so cold my hands hurt, until I can’t feel. It hurt so bad holding her,” Stephanie said.
“A man came and took the two girls into his car so they could sleep because they were too cold. Thank God.” She (Evelyn) is sick now,” the mother said as her miserable daughter coughed beside her.
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“This is the first time we feel this temperature. We come from a tropical country. It was not the coldest last night. It was the coldest this morning around 4:00 a.m. I was like ‘whoa! Will we make it?’ I didn’t even know if it get cold like this.”
Then, after waiting all through the night, the family was told for the second straight day they wouldn’t have their appointment honored.
Instead, an immigration official showed Stephanie how to make a new appointment on the smartphone that ICE issued her at the Mexican border — a process that could have been done Tuesday morning from any location.
“We crossed the border a month ago from my country and they gave us these papers and this telephone with a GPS in it to tell where we are, and they tell us this office here is where we have to come on this day at this time,” she said.
By midday, the line — which had swollen to about 175 people at 4 a.m., according to NY1 –had dissipated, after officials told migrants whose appointments could not be accommodated Wednesday to try again after the holiday weekend.
Migrants who continued to trickle into ICE headquarters, paperwork in hand, in the hopes that officials would make an exception to accommodate them, were bluntly told otherwise.
“We’re closed, we’re closed,” a guard at the door barked in English to several asylum seekers, even as non-migrants with business at the immigration center that carried passports from Ireland and Japan were allowed into the building without question.
One man who was denied entry to the building Wednesday afternoon said it was the seventh time he had tried and failed to attend his processing appointment, underscoring the longstanding scope of the problem as cold weather settled into the region.
Marlo Lopez, 35 was one of the last few people trickling out of Federal Plaza with a manila envelope at around 1 p.m.
“Yes I was able to be attended today, I made the line at 2 a.m. and they took people in until about 5 a.m.” he said.
“The line almost wrapped around the building, I got in it when it was on the other street,” and pointed to the corner of Lafayette and Duane Street.
“There was still a huge line when I went in, I’m not sure how many they let in after me but there was at least 50 people left, it was freezing but you just have to be bundled up really well,” he said, adding that people with children had been waiting for more than 12 hours.
A family of four — a mother, father, a little boy and a baby girl — came for their appointment at 2:15 p.m. and were turned away and told to come back on Monday.
Security guards also blocked The Post from entering 26 Federal Plaza and inquiring about the slipshod system in person.
In a statement to The Post, ICE said it was “working to address current processing delays at some ICE offices,” which sources said were worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Noncitizens should review the ICE check-in criteria and, when possible, make an appointment using the ICE Appointment Scheduler,” the agency said.
ICE said migrants who waited in line all night to make their appointments would not be penalized for missing them if they scan a quick response code with a smartphone.
“Noncitizens would not be deemed a no-show for their appointments if they utilize the QR code. – ICE would reschedule them,” officials said.
The agency’s advise was not helpful to the nearly two hundred migrants who waited in line overnight for an unknown number processing appointments.
People on line told NY1 they were taking the extreme measures because ICE only lets in the number of people the agency can see that day on a first come, first served basis, regardless of who has appointments.
“It’s pretty cold, even my foot falls asleep, even I can’t move my whole hand,” Edi Kiste told NY1 in Spanish at 2:30 a.m. as she held her 2-year-old daughter on Lafayette Street
“I bundled her up with three pants, a jacket, and like two polo shirts inside,” she reportedly said, adding they were still cold.
“It gives hypothermia,” Laura Godoi reportedly said of the weather. Godoi had been waiting outside since 7 p.m., 13 hours before her appointment.
Another woman was reportedly seen breastfeeding her baby in the near-freezing temperatures as she waited.
The situation came as New York City and other sanctuary cities saw an influx of migrants by the thousands, some shipped from the southern border by the Biden administration and many others by Texas officials including Gov. Greg Abbott and the mayor of El Paso.
More than 2.4 million migrants arrived in the US in the fiscal year that ended in September; a record annual high.
The trend appeared to lessen slightly last month, with some 130,000 migrants escaping oppression in Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico and Central America cross the border last month, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
However, there were signs the crisis was set to worsen after a federal judge struck down a Trump-era border policy that allowed law enforcement to swiftly expel migrants caught entering the country illegally last week.
Nearly 26,000 asylum seekers had gone through New York City’s intake system and offered shelter in the boroughs since the spring, city officials said Wednesday.
Almost 18,700 migrants were currently being cared for at 57 emergency shelters and 3 Humanitarian Emergency Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers, according to City Hall.
Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency during the crisis, and is seeking $1 billion in relief from Albany and Washington, DC to offset the city’s humanitarian efforts.
The harsh and haphazard conditions surrounding New York City’s migrant crisis provoked reaction from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Brooklyn Democrat.
“There needs to be a more efficient and humane way for ICE to schedule and process people for check-ins and other appearances,” a spokesperson for the powerful lawmaker reportedly said.
“We are in touch with ICE and advocacy organizations to urge prompt improvements.”
Migrants wait in cold for 25 hours outside NYC ICE headquarters (nypost.com)
