The TOI correspondent from Washington: New York City is terminating a $220m deal with the Pakistan-owned Roosevelt Hotel to house a migrant shelter following a prolonged MAGA meltdown over use of American taxpayer money to facilitate immigration to the US.
Under pressure from the federal government and MAGA hardliners, Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who gravitated to the Trump orbit after facing corruption charges from the Biden administration, announced closure of the site that is said to have housed tens of thousands of migrants in its 1025 rooms at $ 200 a night.
The site opened in May 2023 to serve as both a new arrivals center and shelter for asylum seekers under a three-year $ 220 million deal with government-run Pakistan International Airlines, which owns the hotel, having bought out a Saudi stake in it for $ 36.4million in 2005.
At peak traffic in 2023 when around 4000 migrants were arriving in the city each week, the sight of asylum seekers camping outside the hotel waiting to be processed triggered MAGA hardliners and even some New Yorkers, as Trump and his supporters complained about Democrats housing “illegal immigrants” in “luxury hotels” at the expense of US taxpayers.
“A taxpayer-funded hotel for illegal migrants is owned by the Pakistani government, which means NYC taxpayers are effectively paying a foreign government to house illegals in our own country. This is nuts,” Trump acolyte and MAGA major Vivel Ramaswamy had raged.
Trump himself, lately exercised over a $ 21 million USAID allocation for a voter turnout program in India, had highlighted the purported scam saying the Biden administration had paid $ 59 million to an unspecified hotel in New York City to house illegal immigrants. Standing beside him, Musk had added that the city was paying double the normal rate for the room.
Following the Trump victory, his new administration cited concerns about criminal activity at the hotel for freezing $80 million in FEMA funds to the city, by which time Pakistan had already raked in tens of millions of dollars.
“FEMA was funding the Roosevelt Hotel that serves as a Tren de Aragua base of operations and was used to house Laken Riley’s killer. There will not be a single penny spent that goes against the interest and safety of the American people,” the homeland security department said, referring to the Venezuelan criminal gang, now declared a foreign terrorist organisation, said to be involved in the murder of an American nursing student.
