After deadly shootings, Clinton Hill residents urge end to mega-shelters for migrants

Trash piles up on sidewalks near two mega-shelters for migrants in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, which have drawn ire from neighbors.

Fights have broken out on the sidewalk outside the shelters, which are located near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. A shelter resident was charged in June with a non-fatal stabbing nearby. Earlier this month, two residents tested positive for measles.

And neighbors added another worry on Sunday, when a spate of shootings left two migrants dead and another in critical condition. Police said the shootings could be related.

The violence has escalated neighbors’ long-standing concerns that the shelter complex, which houses nearly 4,000 migrants in a two-block radius, is simply too big. At a protest a block away from one of the shelters on Tuesday, throngs of Clinton Hill residents urged the city to downsize the facilities, which NYPD Assistant Chief Scott Henderson described as the “largest concentration of migrants outside of Randall's Island."

Protesters chanted in unison for the city to “end the lease” for the shelter buildings — which, for the Hall Street site, will expire in March.

“We have to be heard. Enough is enough,” said Renee Collymore, the Democratic liaison for the local state Assembly district, who organized the protest as well as past local meetings on the shelters. “It’s not about anti-migrants. It’s about safety first.”

The protest follows months of public pleas from neighbors, including those during heated town halls urging local elected officials to do something about the complex.

State Attorney General Letitia James, who lives nearby and formerly represented the neighborhood in the City Council, was even drawn into the fray. She promised during a town hall in June to do “whatever I can in my capacity" to address her neighbors’ concerns.

But no immediate help was forthcoming from City Hall on Tuesday.

Asked about Clinton Hill residents’ concerns in a press briefing earlier that day, Mayor Eric Adams pushed back against the notion of relocating the shelters, echoing his oft-repeated refrain on migrant shelters: “We’re out of room.”

“When they say move the shelter, my question to them is where?” Adams said. “Which community should I move it in? Those who are already oversaturated? Or should we all share the burden of this? No one wants this.”

The Clinton Hill complexes are among more than 200 emergency shelters the city set up to house 64,500 migrants. More than 209,100 migrants, most of them asylum-seekers, have sought shelter in the city since spring of 2022.

Some of the protesters said the shelters' size was also a danger for migrants, and railed against its “prison-like” and “inhumane” conditions.

“Mayor Adams, you have blood on your hands,” said local resident Alia McKee Martinez.

Ire from Collymore and fellow Clinton Hill protesters was also directed at Councilmember Crystal Hudson, a Democrat, who several neighbors said hasn’t done enough to advocate for them.

Hudson said in reply that her small office has done "an incredible amount of work," with limited resources, to procure more resources for neighbors and migrants alike.

“How many of them are reaching out to the mayor's office?” Hudson said of her critics. “How many of them are tweeting at the mayor?”

Hudson said she agrees with critics who say the massive congregate setting is unsustainable and should be downsized, and added that she has raised their concerns with the Adams administration. Nonetheless, she said, immediately closing the complex is “not realistic.”

Given the congregate setting and size, she said, “there are bound to be incidents and issues and conflicts.”

Hudson said the Adams administration needs to provide more resources and services at the shelters, such as English classes and trash pickup. She said the administration should also end the 30- and 60-day limits on migrants’ shelter stays, which she said force evicted migrants to sleep outside and endure dangerous conditions.

Josephine Schiel, a protester who lives near the Ryerson Street shelter, complained of migrants outside urinating, defecating, having intercourse, making loud noises and fighting near her block.

“It’s just passing the buck, that’s what it seems like with all the different politicians,” Schiel said.

A spokesperson for the NYPD said police are still searching for two suspects who shot and killed Enny DeJesus Urbina Mendez, 21, and Arturo Jose Rodriguez-Marcano, 30, on Sunday night.

Rodriguez-Marcano lived in the shelter on Ryerson Street, according to police. Rodriguez-Marcano often slept in a nearby park, according to migrants who said they were his friends.

Hudson said the NYPD's 88th Precinct, which includes Clinton Hill, informed her they planned to add more police security around the shelters. Seven officers already patrol the area daily from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., she said, which includes the time of the shootings.

A police spokesperson did not respond to a request for further comment on Tuesday.

Researchers have consistently found that immigrants commit less crime than people born in the United States. Major crimes in the 88th Precinct increased 13.8% compared to this time last year, from 405 to 461, according to NYPD data. That comes as the same crimes have decreased 2.2% citywide.

Khalil Ali, 43, who lives in the neighborhood and observed Tuesday's rally, said he didn’t have any concerns about heightened violence among new migrants, who he said have been subject to “the blame game.”

On closing the shelters, Ali added, “It's easy to say and hard to do.”