They brawl and don’t want to eat food from the city: how illegal immigrants behave who are settled in hotels in New York

A huge Manhattan hotel used to house migrants throws away almost a ton of taxpayer-paid food every day. And all because migrants prefer to secretly cook their own food on dangerous electric stoves, reports New York Post.

Photos taken by a hotel employee show trash bags full of sandwiches and bagels awaiting disposal at The Row NYC, a four-star hotel near Times Square. The city pays up to $500 a night for a room, Felipe Rodriguez, a hotel employee, said.

“It is a crime to throw away so much food,” he said.

Other images show a hotel room littered with empty beer cans and bottles after a World Cup viewing party in November.

“This gathering - in a room where a resident gave her cousin a key while she was in the Bronx herself - escalated into a fight over a match. As a result, one man received a large bump on his head,” Rodriguez said.

He also filmed a short video clip of two migrant women fighting and pulling each other's hair outside a hotel during New Year's celebrations.

The 23-second cell phone footage shows the men holding beer cans as they try to separate the women.

An NYPD source who worked in Times Square on New Year's Eve confirmed the chaos at the hotel. And said the lobby was littered with broken bottles. And some campers danced while others sprawled across the furniture and floor.

“It was a disgusting sight,” the police said.

City Hall declined to say how much it pays to rent The Row or any of the dozens of other hotels used to house migrants

But Rodriguez said he "heard from management that it's between $400 and $500 a night, depending on the size of the room."

Rodriguez, 57, said he started working at the 1300-room hotel in 2017. The man was appalled by what happened when Mayor Eric Adams' administration began using him as a "Humanitarian Response and Relief Center" (HERRC).

“What changed in October was extremely dramatic,” he said. There are some good migrants in this hotel who are living their American dream, taking a second chance to succeed in society. But there are many migrants who create chaos. We have a lot of fights, a lot of drugs, a lot of sexual harassment.”

An NYPD source confirmed that officers were responding to a number of domestic incidents at the hotel. The lobby was originally patrolled by NYPD officers. But in December they were replaced by National Guard soldiers.

On the subject: They sign documents they don’t understand and go randomly: how the system of sending illegal immigrants from Texas to New York works

Rodriguez also said that the hotel has a list of "people who must quarantine - due to COVID, chickenpox and other diseases."

“But nobody controls these people,” he said. As soon as they get bored, they run away. We do not know who is sick and who is not sick.”

Rodriguez added bitterly: "We are in a hostile, violent and unsafe environment."

The Row NYC is one of four HERRCs the City has opened in major Manhattan hotels, in addition to 71 smaller hotels across the city.

An expanding list of hotels is being used to house some 26 of the 100 migrants who have arrived in the Big Apple since the spring.

Officials originally planned for migrants to be processed at HERRC for just 72 hours. But the goal was abandoned after the influx of migrants was so strong that it forced Adams to declare a state of emergency in October.

Rodriguez said at least 40% of food supplied to migrants is wasted. He estimated the amount of food thrown away at "nearly a ton" per day.

“How do I know this? Because cleaners walk the floors every day and collect garbage, he said. “It used to be like six or seven sacks at the back of each floor. Now they collect 15-20 bags. Everything that migrants do not consume is in these bags. Once I weighed one of the bags filled with sandwiches and it weighed 27 kilograms.”

Rodriguez added: “There were times when we couldn't take out all the trash because the containers were full. And I'm talking about 25-30 trash containers.”

“Why do we throw away so much food? Someone in the city should have said, "Let's order less food so we throw less food away." But nobody cares,” he said.

He confiscated stoves, pressure cookers and other prohibited items from hotel guests at least eight times.

“I felt terrible. They want hot food. They don't want sandwiches. They need food, like in their country. And this is a serious problem,” he said.

In addition to sandwiches and bagels, migrants are served fruit, peanuts, chips, juice, soda, and ready-to-eat meals that are heated in the microwave.

“They don't like the menu. Simply do not like it. They want rice and beans, toasts,” he said.

Rodriguez recalled one incident last month when he "knocked on the door on the 18th floor to deliver a blanket, saw smoke and heard the fire alarm go off."

“I put in my key and pushed open the door and a whole puff of smoke came out,” he said. There was a woman there, and I asked: “What are you doing?”. She replied: "Nothing." I said, "What does 'nothing' mean? Where is all this smoke coming from? She replied, "I don't know."

Rodriguez said he searched the room and found a pot of burnt rice hidden in the bathroom. As well as two more pots, a frying pan and an “old stove” under the bed.

“The stove was older than my grandmother, and my grandmother is long gone,” he said. - It's electricity. If those wires spark and something goes wrong, the whole building will go up in flames.”

Rodriguez continued to work at the hotel even after receiving a $5 million settlement from the state in April. He said he felt so bad that the next day he gave the family $300 and told them to go to a restaurant.

But Rodriguez said he understands why the hotel 'can't allow' migrants to cook in their rooms.

“They usually put the stove on the carpet so no one can see it and keep it away from the fire alarm,” he said. “If those polyester curtains on the windows touch the red spiral, it's all over. This possibility scares everyone.”

“If you are on the 27th or 28th floor and a fire starts, the elevators don't work. That means you'll have to use the stairs,” he said. “The children worry me the most. We have too many children in this hotel. There are pregnant women in the hotel… The tragedy will be devastating.”

In addition, Rodriguez said the hotel "forgot about the standards it had when it had regular guests."

“If they were caught smoking in a hotel, the fine was $500. It was possible to smoke outside, but it was impossible to stand at the entrance so that people would not inhale secondhand smoke, he said. - The protocols were flushed down the toilet, because migrants can smoke weed, they can smoke cigarettes. You can't tell them anything."