NEW YORK—A couple strode to the entrance of The Roosevelt Hotel before being stopped by a security guard. They explained they just wanted to get drinks at the bar before the guard informed them that the hotel was closed.
“When did that happen?” they asked, surprised.
It’s an easy mistake to make. Despite closing in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hotel doesn’t look closed. Scripted awnings bearing the name of the iconic hotel, named after President Theodore Roosevelt, still hang above the entrances, and a buzz of activity surrounds its doors.
After the hotel closed, and with a rising wave of illegal aliens arriving in New York City, city officials began directing migrant families to the hotel in May, The New York Times reported, as the Biden administration continued to allow hundreds of thousads of illegal aliens into the United States.
Today, The Roosevelt Hotel has become a central processing location and homeless shelter for illegal aliens arriving in the Big Apple.
On a chilly December evening, The Daily Signal spoke briefly with illegal aliens outside the New York hotel who said they were from Venezuela, China, Chad, Senegal, and Mauritania.
The security guards at the door could not, or would not, share how many illegal aliens stay in the hotel at any given time or how long they stay.
The press office for New York City Mayor Eric Adams told The Daily Signal in an email Wednesday: “There are approximately 850 rooms at the Roosevelt Hotel, all of which are currently occupied by migrant families with children. It’s approx. 3,000 individuals.”
A family of five from Venezuela who entered the country illegally told The Daily Signal outside the hotel that they traveled through nine countries to get to the U.S. The family wasn’t staying at the Roosevelt, but the father and husband explained that since arriving in New York they had registered their three boys for school. He said he hoped to find work in the city.
“I don’t see an end to this flow if we don’t have real changes in Washington, D.C.,” Adams told reporters Tuesday when questioned about the city’s continual influx of illegal aliens.
As many as 4,000 illegal aliens arrive in the city each week, Adams said. Given the number of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border this week, New York isn’t likely to see a drop in numbers before year’s end.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection logged a new record this week after encountering nearly 27,000 illegal aliens at the border in a two-day period, according to data obtained by the Washington Examiner from the agency.
On Monday alone, the Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli reported, 14,509 illegal aliens crossed the border into the U.S.
An additional 12,242 migrants crossed the southern border illegally Tuesday, the Examiner reported.
Meanwhile, in Congress, negotiations over a border security bill are ongoing. The Republican-led House passed a border security bill known as HR 2 in May, but the Democrat-led Senate hasn’t taken it up.
Senators have been negotiating a spending bill that would secure the border and provide aid to Israel and Ukraine, but lawmakers won’t attempt to pass such legislation until the new year.
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