A day after Mayor Eric Adams announced that the Floyd Bennett Field shelter will close on Jan. 15, Montilla, a 36-year-old asylum seeker from Venezuela, heard a staff member announce through a megaphone that the site must be empty and dismantled by Jan. 5. The staff member’s voice echoed throughout the tent inciting both relief and uncertainty. Montilla’s children are midway through the school semester nearby and he is expecting his Social Security Number and Employment Authorization to arrive by mid-January. Yet, the shelter has not informed him how or when the relocation will happen.
“This has confused the whole world here. Some have asked ‘will I leave first, will I leave last.’ Will they put us all in one bus? This is something that should be done with anticipation so that we know where we will have to go,” Montilla said in Spanish.
The Floyd Bennett Field tent shelter recently drew attention from immigrant advocates due to its location on federal land, posing a possible target for president-elect Donald Trump to advance his mass deportation promises.
On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams announced the closure of 25 shelter locations, including Floyd Bennett Field, which is set to end operations by mid January. While migrants are relieved that they will be moved away from federal land, the lack of communication has caused uncertainty for shelter residents like Montilla, who worry about the impact that the relocation will have on his children’s school year, and losing valuable mail correspondence due to the transition.
Montilla currently has a pending asylum petition with USCIS. He has lived in the site with his three children and wife since November 2023. In the year-long stay, he said his family developed a routine to make the best amidst the challenging circumstances that they endured inside the 2,000-bed shelter. He said remoteness of the area, the food, the cold, and the bathroom situation was difficult to adjust to, which Documented reported earlier this year.
His younger children — ages 5 and 9 — go to school in Flatbush and they return to the shelter around 3 p.m. every day. It is a routine that has brought them a sense of stability for his children as they learn English and make new friends.
“I only ask those in charge, and even God, to help us relocate somewhere close to my children’s schools,” Montilla said. He explained that he and his wife can handle getting used to a new community even if they were to move to a new state like New Jersey. “It is not for us, it is for our children … they won’t know anyone and will have to start all over again.”
Ensuring the families with children at the shelters are relocated safely and close to the schools is a concern shared by many residents, Chandler Miranda, member of the coordinating committee at Floyd Bennett Field Neighbors (FBFN) mutual aid collective, said.
“Will kids be displaced from their school community? Will their commute to school be really far? I think mixed with the joy is the anxiety of transition. We are hoping the city does right by then and gets the families into safe housing, and allows the kids to continue in their schools,” she said.
In the weeks following Trump’s presidential election win, FBFN and other advocacy groups pressured the Adams administration to move the residents to a shelter in city-owned land.
“The incoming Trump administration has promised to begin mass deportations ‘on day one.’ Given Floyd Bennett’s unique federal standing, it would be an easy target for a mass raid or for a conversion into a detention center,” a letter by FBFN sent to the Adams administration on Dec. 2 said.
Also Read: DHS Transfers Migrant Families Out of Shelters With 24 to 48 Hour Notice
City Hall announced on Dec. 10 that the Floyd Bennett Field site is set to close five days before Trump takes office. City Hall did not respond to Documented’s request for comments regarding the closure being influenced by Trump’s promises to mass deport immigrants. CBS reported in September the lease of the site had been renewed for another year.
Miranda said the mutual aid collective celebrated the announcement and believes that the residents will be better inside a shelter owned by the city as opposed to federally owned land, where ICE could have access to the site, as the New York Times reported last month.
“We could be the best people in the world, in the end they could put us in the same boat,” Montilla said regarding the possible risks of staying on federal land. “[Trump] just won the election and we know he has problems with immigrants.” He explained that residents in the shelter were anxious the previous weeks.
In the meantime, however, like Montilla, FBFN recognizes the impact that the mutual aid has had in helping the residents adapt to the controversial conditions at the end and are planning to ensure the transition to their new homes are as seamless as possible.
FBFN has been on the ground since 2023 providing coats and warm clothes during the winter months, shoes, hot food, printed resource booklets, and toiletries to residents in the shelter. Montilla said the mutual aid support has been vital when it comes to information, including the most recent advocacy for the shelter to be moved away from federal land.
Also Read: Trump’s Mass Deportation Plan: How Will It Work?
“There is a rich network of mutual aid groups that are supporting migrant families across the city. We are connected with many of them, and know that almost every shelter has some sort of community support attached to it” Miranda said. She believes citywide mutual aid groups and volunteers will help with transition for the residents.
Regarding the change of address for Montilla’s correspondence, he was told by his lawyers that he should let them know before the actual move date so that they can update the address with USCIS.
Montilla hopes the relocation date happens before his work permit arrives. Once he has that, he hopes to find a job as a civil engineer, a job he held back in Venezuela.
