Page 4 - aruba-today-20250211

A4 U.S. NEWS
Tuesday 11 February 2025
New York City shutters sprawling migrant tent camp on remote

former airfield

By PHILIP MARCELO ent,” Montilla said in Span-
Associated Press ish. “But at least for now it’s
NEW YORK (AP) — New York too strong, very strong; it is
City has shuttered a sprawl- difficult.”
ing tent complex that Groups advocating for mi-
housed hundreds of mi- grants also say more needs
grant families on a remote to be done to transition mi-
former airport in Brooklyn, grants to more permanent
as it shrinks the emergency housing.
shelter system built up in re- Among the priorities should
sponse to a surge from the be things ranging from end-
southern border that has ing controversial policies
been steadily receding in limiting the amount of time
recent months. migrants are allowed to re-
The last of the roughly 2,000 main in a shelter to invest-
people living on a wind- ing in better case manage-
swept tarmac at Floyd Ben- ment and legal assistance
nett Field, once the city’s on securing immigration
first airport, departed the status and work permits,
gated encampment over said Will Watts, a deputy
the weekend, and crews executive director at the
were seen this week dis- Coalition for the Homeless.
mantling the hulking struc- Newly arrived migrants
ture. The gate at the migrant shelter, is closed at Floyd Bennett Field on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024 in should also be brought into
Advocates had warned New York. the city’s traditional shelter
that the facility, which is Associated Press system for the homeless so
built on leased federal in Spanish, marveling at the in roughly 200 temporary school in Brooklyn and rush- that they are no longer seg-
land, could be vulnerable contrast between the hard sites, down from nearly ing to make appointments regated and vulnerable to
to immigration raids as Pres- cots they slept on in their 70,000 last January. after his family was recent- immigration enforcement,
ident-elect Donald Trump single room at the airport But the steady drum of shel- ly moved from the now- said Steph Rudolph, a staff
takes office Monday. tent camp since arriving in ter closings and forced re- closed Floyd Bennett Field attorney at the Legal Aid
Jehinzo Gonzalez, a the country in October. locations have also forced encampment to a hotel in Society.
47-year-old from Venezu- About 230,000 migrants many migrant families to Queens. Trump has promised a
ela, said he, his wife and have come to New York upend their routines for On a frigid, windy Tuesday, nationwide immigration
three sons were transferred since spring 2022, but new work, schooling and other he had just enough time crackdown, including mass
to another nearby city-run arrivals have declined for daily needs just as they are after dropping off the kids deportations, after he takes
shelter just a week before 27 straight weeks and are trying to establish a foot- to travel across Brooklyn to office. “Now that the num-
Christmas. now at the lowest point in hold in the city. submit immigration paper- bers are going down, the
“It’s a more dignified place more than a year, accord- Gabriel Montilla, a migrant work at a government of- rationale for a separate sys-
for the family. We have ing to Mayor Eric Adams’ from Venezuela, said he fice. tem is no longer there,” Ru-
three rooms for the five of administration. now spends hours each “If it were summer or some- dolph said. “It makes sense
us. Comfortable beds, a Roughly 50,000 migrants day in transit, chaperoning thing without such cold to bring everyone under
private bathroom,” he said are currently being housed his three young children to weather, it would be differ- the same system.”q

L.A. wildfire recovery czar will work for free after backlash to

proposed $500K salary for 3 months

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Steve Soboroff, a distracting from the recovery work we’re
longtime fixture in Los Angeles civic life doing,” Bass said in a statement Saturday.
who is now serving as chief recovery offi- She had named him to the recovery czar
cer for the city’s wildfire comeback, won’t position on Jan. 17.
take a salary after facing backlash over A message seeking comment was left for
plans to pay him $500,000. He would have Soboroff on Monday.
been paid through charitable donations, Soboroff, 76, raised his family in the Pacific
not with taxpayer money. Palisades area, where nearly 7,000 homes
Soboroff had defended the proposed sal- were destroyed by last month’s inferno. His
ary of half-a-million dollars for 3 months of son, NBC News journalist Jacob Soboroff,
work, saying his expertise as a residential reported from the devastated neighbor-
property developer made him worth the hood where he grew up.
price. But after criticisms mounted from He was initially tasked with leading the
elected officials and residents, Los Ange- first phase of the city’s wildfire rebuilding
les Mayor Karen Bass reversed course over effort. On Friday though, Bass suggested
the weekend and said Soboroff would re- that the scope of his work could be dimin-
ceive no compensation. ished, saying he would focus primarily on
This image released by PRSA Los Angeles shows Steve Soboroff,
president of Soboroff Partners, accepting his award for “Steve is always there for LA. I spoke to rebuilding the Palisades’ historic business
Outstanding Achievement in Public Affairs at the 48th Annual him today and asked him to modify his district. Soboroff disputed that notion, say-
PRism Awards in Los Angeles, Nov. 7, 2012. agreement and work for free. He said yes. ing he is regularly interacting with federal
Associated Press We agree that we don’t need anything agencies.q