Mutual aid groups and immigration nonprofits told Documented they scrambled this weekend to assist migrant men at a Jefferson Street shelter near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The men said they were blindsided when management abruptly told them to pack up and leave. According to Food Fight Brooklyn, a free food distribution program, hundreds of migrant men have been impacted.
Food Fight Brooklyn put out an urgent call Friday night asking New Yorkers to show up on Saturday morning to support the migrants by providing suitcases to pack their belongings and, most importantly, large men’s coats.
By Saturday evening, Food Fight Brooklyn, a program of volunteers who have been serving migrants at the Jefferson shelter, gave an update on Instagram saying that the two floors of migrant men at the Jefferson shelter were emptied and migrants were sent out into Code Blue weather conditions. Many migrant men did not have appropriate clothing for warmth, the statement said. Some had a temporary place to go, some were bused to Randall’s Island, and others had nowhere to go, according to the group.
A volunteer with Food Fight Brooklyn who preferred to speak on conditions of anonymity told Documented on Sunday: “It’s Cold Blue conditions and the shelter is kicking people out with ‘maybe’ a notice of one or two days, but usually our friends are getting no notice. The only placement the shelter is giving them is Randall’s Island, which is a horrific caricature of a ‘shelter,’” they said.
The shelter on Randall’s Island is a tent just a few steps away from the East River.
“It’s especially freezing on that part of the island the camp is located at. It’s a cop city with police patrols, a New York State Police training academy, and a New York State Police complex where God knows what happens there,” they continued. “There are dangerously few ways to get off the island and nowhere to buy food. The camp is closing on Feb. 7, so our friends can’t even feel at home because the state is violently displacing them again.”
Migrants who refused to leave got taken by the shelter’s staff into the cafeteria and got their shelter ID cards cut in half, according to communication shared with Documented.
Volunteers ended up helping migrants who had no place to go to stay at Mayday Space — a community center in Brooklyn — for the night.
Advocates have continued to express concerns about what they perceive as bad communication from the city administration that left shelter residents unaware about the shelter relocation until the last minute. But City Hall denies any miscommunication, asserting that migrants were informed on Tuesday about the transfer and provided details of their next shelter on Randall’s Island, according to a news report on Pix 11.
“Every single man in the shelter is being impacted by this because they are all being forced into the cold and through the shelter system process which has the purpose of quiet extermination. Hundreds of people, our friends, are suffering,” said the volunteer with Food Fight Brooklyn who Documented spoke to.
The city’s plan is to stop using the migrant shelter at Jefferson for single adult men and instead use it to serve single adult women and adult families.
This summary was featured in Documented’s Early Arrival newsletter. You can subscribe to receive it in your inbox three times per week here.
