By Lindy Rosales
The Roosevelt Hotel, which served as the official processing center for asylum seekers, has closed its doors on July 2, with Mayor Eric Adams declaring that “New York City…will always be, a city of immigrants.”
Located on 45th Street in midtown Manhattan, the former hotel opened on May 19, 2023 as the Asylum Seeker Arrival Center and Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center. The center provided intake, medical, social and reconnection services to more than 155,000 individuals, approximately two-thirds of the 237,000 asylum seekers who have arrived since then or two years ago.
The announcement on the closure states that the Arrival Center had received approximately 32,000 people on at least 800 chartered buses and seven planes sent to New York City. The effort was in coordination agencies such as the NYC Emergency Management, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
In September 2023, at the height of the crisis, the center received approximately 4,000 individuals per week. Since the beginning of June 2024, the arrivals have diminished with the facility receiving less than 100 people per week.
The Arrival Center served as the first point of contact for all newly arrived asylum seekers. They came from over 160 countries and spoke 60 languages. The Roosevelt Hotel operated without interruption 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The center provided food, water, bathrooms, luggage storage and hygiene products, allowing adults and children to rest. The center had resource navigator teams who evaluated the asylum seekers’s information, including their legal documents, their application for asylum, work authorization, Temporary Protected Status, employment history, and education.
“We marked the closure of the Roosevelt Hotel, ending a key chapter in our city’s historic response to the asylum seeker humanitarian crisis. When a lot of folks wanted to step back, NYC stepped up and led the nation in our response”, said Adams in a statement.
The city reported on the center’s milestones:
– assisted 237,000 asylum seekers;
– had a vaccination program that provided over 200,000 vaccinations;
– enrolled 50,000 children in NYC public schools;
– helped complete over 111,000 applications for work authorization, Temporary Protected Status, and asylum;
– helped over 90 percent of eligible adults apply for work authorization.
Retired Filipina nurse Gina Peralta (not her real name) from the Bronx who is a NYC resident for 30 years welcomed the closure of the center.
“As a U.S. citizen, a taxpayer and a retiree with no particular political affiliation, I totally agree with the closure of the asylum seeker center,” she said.
“Two years plus of full city assistance and humanitarian aid is enough. Citizens and legal residents deserve the benefits that these asylum seekers received and enjoyed.”
In its heyday, The Roosevelt Hotel a well-known Manhattan hotel among tourists and city residents. Among Filipino Americans, the hotel served as a resting place before attending the Philippine Independence Day parade in June. Community leaders were known to check in at the hotel a day before the parade so they didn’t have to worry about parking or walking too far from Madison Avenue huffing and puffing while elegantly dressed. They could stay overnight after the parade before heading back to their homes in New Jersey or Connecticut.
The Roosevelt Hotel permanently closed its doors in 2020 due to continued financial losses associated with the COVID-10 pandemic, according to reports. Named in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt, the 19-story building opened in 1924. The hotel is owned by Pakistani International Airlines (PIA), a state-run Pakistani company since 2000.
