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NYC Mayor Adams sparks outrage with plan to house 1,000 illegal immigrants in camp at Orchard Beach

September 24, 2022 | | Print Article

In a move that he is celebrating as a “moral” victory over Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan that would house 1,000 illegal immigrants in tents in the parking lot of one of the Bronx’s most treasured spots: Orchard Beach, next to the upscale Westchester County.

It’s one of two refugee-style encampments aimed at dealing with the city’s influx of migrants that the mayor has planned for the city, though the second location has yet to be disclosed, according to the Daily Mail.

In a Thursday press release, Adams stated, “More than 100 years ago, Ellis Island opened its doors to welcome in those ‘yearning to breathe free.'”

“Now, more than ever, it’s clear that we are again dealing with a humanitarian crisis created by human hands,” the statement continued. “While other leaders have abdicated their moral duty to support arriving asylum seekers, New York City refuses to do so.”

But Bronx residents aren’t exactly applauding the moral high ground.

“Oh no! This is my backyard,” retired teacher Sheila Para, 55, told the Daily Mail.

Para lives just 10 minutes from the Orchard Beach neighborhood.

“It’s going to be a hot mess… Just a hot mess,” she said. “I am not happy.”

“I can’t even imagine that happening,” she continued. “I come here at least a few times a week. It’s my serenity. I like the quietness. It is clean.”

“Now if they are going to be putting up these makeshift tents here it is not going to be the same,” she lamented. “It is going to be horrible. I didn’t know that. I am not for it at all.”

Para accused Adams of being a “hypocrite.”

“Of course Mayor Adams doesn’t put the migrants in his neighborhood or his family’s neighborhood . . . anywhere else but his area,” she said.

Para is sympathetic to those trying to cross the border, but it doesn’t change her opposition to Adams’ plan.

“I feel so hard people are suffering at the border and I pray for them but I don’t want them coming here,” she stated. “Oh no!”

Bill Healy, a 73-year-old veteran, also considers Adams a “hypocrite.”

“He is doing what he is being told by Washington,” he stated. “It is all being dictated and we don’t even know who is running the White House. Susan Rice?”

Healy is concerned the Biden administration’s immigration policies are destroying America.

“First of all they are not migrant, that is what they are calling them – they are illegal aliens,” he said. “A hundred years ago people are talking about the legal way they came here through Ellis Island run by the Army Medical Core so you came through America here you had to have all your papers together, you had to have sponsors, you couldn’t just walk in here.”

“They are trying to turn America into a third-world country and that is what we are afraid of,” he continued. “How many more people can we absorb in here? We are just letting anyone come in here.”

Healy and his wife, Diane, a retired school district employee, are planning to make the move to Florida, due to New York’s high taxes and out-of-control crime.

“The real problem is the crime,” Healy stated. “We cannot go anywhere on the main street anymore at night. There is muggings, rapes, hijackings in broad daylight on Tremont Avenue – Tremont runs all the way through The Bronx and they run their cars at 80 mph all night long and the police don’t do anything.”

While Healy, too, has sympathy for the plight of the migrants, he reminded the Daily Mail that Americans have been suffering, too.

“There is the human element,” he said. “I understand, but we lost jobs to COVID. People couldn’t go to church, funerals, couldn’t go anywhere, yet there are these migrants are getting bussed in with no masks, people don’t know who they are.”

Pastor and social worker Robert Cole, 62, is worried about the apparent lack of a “plan of action” surrounding the mayor’s proposal.

“Part of me is concerned about the unknown,” he said. “What is your plan of action? Is it just putting thousands of people in a parking lot?”

“Let the people know,” he urged Adams. “I think they have a right to know.”

“My biggest concern is I haven’t heard a plan,” he continued. “Are the migrants going to just roam up and down the beach here. They just can’t stay in their makeshift tents all day. I am sure some property owners are concerned. Will they go onto their property?”

“How is this going to impact the environment?” he asked. “Thousands of people with nowhere to live. I wish the government on a whole would come together and develop a plan so people can know what is happening and not fly on the seat of their pants that seems to be happening with Mayor Adams right now.”

Orchard Beach, Pastor Cole notes, is special and the lack of a clearly-defined plan is unfair to Bronx residents.

“The Bronx has very little space,” he stated. “We have Van Cortland Park, but there is no place like Orchard Beach. It is a place we come to relax and with these thousands of migrants coming here it is unfair to the people who utilize the park and live here and it is not fair for them not to know what is going on.”

According to Adams, migrants would be housed in the tents for “96 hours” before they are transferred to their desired “settlement” sites.

“This is not an everyday homelessness crisis, but a humanitarian crisis that requires a different approach,” he said in his statement. “That’s why the Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers will be the first touchpoint for asylum seekers that will provide them with a range of services and support as families determine their next steps.”

“This emergency response represents what we know must be done during this humanitarian crisis, as we continue to seek assistance from our federal and state partners to continue this work,” Adams continued. “Like the generations that came to our city before, New York will provide the thousands now coming to our city with the foundation to build a better life.”

Jim, a member of the swanky nearby Pelham Country Club, where membership costs more than $20,000, is disgusted by the way the Biden administration is handling the border crisis.

“This is a much bigger problem than Mayor Adams that needs to be addressed,” he said. “The way it is being handled at the federal level is disgraceful.”

“We are supposed to be a sanctuary city obviously,” he continued. “The Bronx is part of New York City.”

“It doesn’t seem like a good problem,” he stated, “and I am wondering where the outcry was when the Biden administration was doing midnight flights to Westchester Airport, when planes should not be flying after 11 pm.”

“So the outrage and the hypocrisy is among all of those individuals, because only now — because Gov. Abbott and DeSantis are making it a problem here – that is where the outrage is,” he noted, “but when it was a secret and the Biden administration was doing that there was no outrage.”

“It’s horrible for the people, of course,” he said. “I think every American’s heart goes out for what they are suffering in their own countries, but there is a way to come into this country, there is a process, and nothing is being done.”

“When this all started,” he argued. “the administration’s policy was, ‘let’s get to the root cause.’ Well, there is no recording, there is nothing being done to solve the root cause of the problem, and it seems the current administration’s solution is to let everyone in and that is not a solution.”

Melissa Fine
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