News/Commentary

‘It’s very bad. It’s terrible.’ NYC business owners sound off as migrants cause chaos, drive customers away

July 25, 2023 | | Print Article

New York City businesses have had it with the chaos and violence caused by illegal immigrants who are also hitting them in the wallet big time.

The flood of illegal immigrants into the Big Apple has caused businesses to speak out as the influx spirals out of control impacting the entire city, according to the New York Post. Companies cannot sustain the financial hit they are taking as they battle crime and destruction as well as customers fleeing the city to get away from the havoc.

As Mayor Eric Adams declared the city is full and there is no more room for illegal immigrants, he started evicting them from shelters, pushing them into the streets of New York City and right into the laps of local businesses.

Entire families are camping on sidewalks, in parks, and under bridges. Men fight in the streets as mini-tent cities are exploding across the landscape. The garbage, filth, and violence have driven residents to the boiling point.

“It has really, really, really affected us,” George Boahene, who is the manager of SAYKI Menswear, told the New York Post. “This is not a residential area; this is a business area.”

“I am scared a little bit because this is not the way it’s supposed to be,” he said referring to the business district. Boahene said that the store would usually have “5,000 customers or orders” – but it has dwindled to “less than 500” on a given Friday.

“And I’m scared because if my boss sees the situation, that business is not going up, he’s going to close the store. And then I don’t have a job,” he said.

“It’s really affecting Manhattan,” Boahene asserted.

Outside the Roosevelt shelter, migrants can be seen selling T-shirts, jeans, shoes, coffee, and snacks to anyone who will buy them, turning the business district into an open-air market reminiscent of Mexico.

“It’s a f***ing eyesore. You have to zigzag, do a little dance sometimes to get past there without bumping into anybody,” one 46-year-old finance worker railed as he tried to get home.

“I’m not saying don’t put them somewhere, but here in this neighborhood where they’re turning the place into a dump? They can stay inside, they can go to the park, but you don’t own the sidewalk, you don’t take it over. It’s too much,” he added.

Bikes and motorcycles now crowd the street outside the Roosevelt as migrants deliver food to earn money. Large groups of men shuffle around the bikes, spilling into the street as they wait to deliver more food.

“It’s very bad. It’s terrible. It’s a bad image for business,” the owner of a jewelry store near the shelter complained. “People don’t want to come around here, and I don’t blame them.”

“In the morning, it’s messy – cans, food, everything. We have to clean it up. They sit in front of the entrance and I have to ask them to move. They park their scooters and bicycles in front of our business. They don’t care,” he remarked. “I have no choice but to live with it.”

The problem is reportedly happening at most of the shelters in New York City now.

“I’ve called 311 on the bikes and scooters, and the police cleared them out, but today they are right back here,” Rachel Luna commented about the conditions outside the Lincoln Correctional Facility in Harlem.

That was the same shelter where illegal immigrants started pelting pedestrians with objects Sunday. Two men stepped in to stop it and were brutally beaten for their efforts with one being shoved through the glass door of an apartment building.

“Meanwhile, conditions outside the city’s latest mega-shelter at 47 Hall Street in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood – just steps from where a mini-tent encampment was erected last week — are just as dire, residents and local business employees say,” the New York Post reported.

“Migrants staying at the shelter, which is designed to cater to roughly 2,000 single adults, have taken to hanging their laundry on steel barricades erected along the sidewalk, milling about on the streets and smoking in a nearby children’s playground,” the media outlet continued.

Things are changing in New York City and not for the better.

“The vibe has shifted,” an employee at a motorcycle store told reporters. “There are a few hundred migrants just loitering around, sleeping in the courtyards, leaving their garbage all around the store and in the courtyard. They hang their clothes outside. It makes the place looks untidy and unwelcoming.”

“We have had to hire a separate security guard to prevent [migrants] from coming in the store or loitering outside … It’s clear our sales have been affected. Not only are we losing business, we also have to spend extra money on third-party security,” he stated

A number of illegal immigrants who have been evicted from shelters for fighting have set up a mini-tent encampment under the nearby Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. It was torn down on Friday by city workers and was set up again the next day.

Mayor Eric Adams told everyone on Monday that he wouldn’t stand for New York City to become like other major cities with tent encampments popping up everywhere, stating, “We’re not having that here in New York.”

“I told everyone last year, ‘This migrant crisis is going to come to a neighborhood near you.’ That day has arrived. It’s going to come to everyone’s neighborhood,” the mayor starkly warned.

“People need to focus their attention to Washington, DC. A national problem should be a national solution. It should not be New York City’s solution,” Adams reiterated.

City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) blasted Adams for making New York City a sanctuary city in the first place.

“The problem is those who demand we continue to be a sanctuary city have no plan other than to spend us into gross deficits,” he told the New York Post in an interview.

“They don’t have an effing plan other than that, period. We simply have to stop paying. We have to stop signing leases with hotels, we have to stop building HERRCs! Enough is enough!” he exclaimed.

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