NEW YORK.- Abdoullahi Diallo, who left Mauritania in search of “democracy” and “respect”, is one of hundreds of migrantsmost of them African, who are waiting for accommodation in a New York, where the mayor has hung the “no space” sign.
It took the 25-year-old Mauritanian man more than two weeks to get from his native country to the city of skyscrapers, chiselled by immigration, to which he has historically welcomed with open doors.
He passed through Istanbul (Turkey) from where he flew to Nicaragua –the main gateway to the continent for most of the immigrants consulted–, before arriving in the Big Apple, on a trip that, he says, cost him more than 8,000 dollars.
“We have come to New York because we do not have a normal life in our country, we are fed up, even if you study, even if you are of working age, you do not have a job,” he says after recalling the “suffering” experienced in the long journey through countries that ” I don’t even remember.” However, he does not forget that in Mexico, “masked policemen stole all our money.”
Like Diallo, young Africans from West Africa, especially from Mauritania and Senegal, fleeing political instability and a lack of future, are now the bulk of migrants seeking help at the New York City Hall’s reception center set up at the Hotel Roosevelt, a step away from the emblematic Fifth Avenue.
Some have been waiting for more than a week, sleeping on cardboard in the middle of the street on the outskirts of the center waiting to be accommodated. Volunteers distribute food and water.
A Latin American accompanied by his wife who does not want to give his name for fear that it would affect his situation – “yesterday they told us not to talk to the press” – was relocated last week, after two days in line, on some mats in the floor in a hotel in the city.
But this Monday they were brought back to the reception center in search of a more lasting solution. Meanwhile, they sleep in armchairs in a hotel lounge, he told AFP. “They tell us we have to wait,” he says.
“It won’t get better”
“There is no space” and the immigration crisis “is not going to get better,” warned New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat.
Adams has met with the federal authorities to try to find a solution, which, according to him, involves more controls at the border, decreeing a state of emergency and federal aid to deal with this wave of migration.
But above all, this former police officer urges the federal authorities to expedite work permits for new arrivals. “There is nothing more un-American than not being able to work,” he says.
In the last year, more than 93,000 people -most of them Latin Americans and particularly Venezuelans and Central Americans- have arrived in this sanctuary city, which by law is obliged to offer a free roof to anyone who requests it.
Almost 106,000 people, including some 54,000 migrants, live in shelters, hotels or premises set up by the city, according to the authorities.
The New York Democratic authorities, which in recent weeks have tried to dissuade migrants from coming to the Big Apple, now give priority to families with young children when granting free accommodation. The maximum stay for single men is 60 days.
Above all, they want to prevent this city of 8.5 million inhabitants and a tourist mecca with 56 million visitors last year from looking like “other cities where there are tents on every street,” the mayor announced.
Under highway bridges that cross some neighborhoods of the city, such as Brooklyn and Queens, the tents are already beginning to form part of the landscape.
FOUNTAIN: AFP
