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NYC closes migrant shelter at Floyd Bennett Field with more set to shutter by summer 2025

Controversial migrant shelter in Brooklyn shutters ahead of wave of planned closures
Controversial migrant shelter in Brooklyn shutters ahead of wave of planned closures 02:06

NEW YORK — The controversial Floyd Bennett Field migrant shelter in Brooklyn closed Saturday, just four months into a new year-long lease.

Mayor Eric Adams was on hand to celebrate as workers began dismantling the tent encampment. The 2,000-bed site had been in operation for more than a year.

"And I want to just personally say sorry to them because this is something that none of us wanted," Adams said.

This is one of 25 planned closures the mayor announced in December. The Randall's Island shelter is also on that list. The city expects to have all 25 sites shuttered by March.

The city says a "smaller brick-and-mortar congregate facility" will open on Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx for single adult men. Migrants who are still living at the Randall's Island shelter at the time of its closure will be transferred to this new facility.

NYC plans to close 13 migrant shelters by summer 2025

On top of those 25 closures, Adams announced this week the city will shut down 13 more shelters by June. Those 13 shelters have a combined total of about 10,000 beds.

The following shelters are on the latest closure list:

  • BK Way, Brooklyn
  • Hall Street Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, Brooklyn
  • Holiday Inn Express, Brooklyn
  • The VYBE BK, Brooklyn
  • 99 Washington Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, Manhattan
  • The Stewart Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, Manhattan
  • The Watson Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, Manhattan
  • Hotel Nedia, Queens
  • Holiday Inn/Staten Island Inn, Staten Island
  • Ramada, Yonkers

The city says they are still finalizing the closure of three additional facilities.

"That means in one year, we have closed 46 shelter sites," Adams said.

According to the city, by June, over 20% of the emergency sites opened in response to the city's asylum seeker crisis will be closed.

The mayor says the number of migrants housed by New York has gone down for 27 straight weeks and 78% of asylum seekers that have stayed at city shelters have left.

"There are those who are looking to work ... Over 78 percent of those who came here have cycled out of the system. You don't come to America to live in a shelter. You don't come to America to raise your children in a shelter," he said.

The Adams administration and the Trump administration

The Floyd Bennett Field shelter was on a national park – federal property that would make it easier for the incoming Trump administration to either cancel the lease or even round up migrant families in a mass deportation raid.

Advocates for migrants and people experiencing homelessness rallied Wednesday at City Hall, calling for laws to protect New York's most vulnerable during Trump's second term.

"New York is not a sanctuary state ... We should have the whole state be a sanctuary state, and then if that happened, if there was a mayor who wanted to repeal the city's standing as a sanctuary city, that wouldn't have an impact," former City Councilmember Christine Quinn said.

Adams, who remains under federal indictment and who once called himself the "Biden of Brooklyn," now slams the outgoing administration's immigration policy and told CBS News New York political reporter Marcia Kramer in December that he will work with Trump.

"I think there's some common grounds here from what I'm hearing from the border czar. He's concerned about public safety the way that I am and New Yorkers are concerned about public safety," Adams said at the time.

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