Chaos erupts as furious protesters heckle AOC during Dems’ press conference for NYC’s escalating migrant crisis
Furious protestors screaming “close the border” heckled Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Jerry Nadler and other Democrats Friday during a Midtown a press conference on the Big Apple’s escalating migrant crisis.
The New York pols were drowned out by the angry screams as they tried to talk outside the Roosevelt Hotel mega shelter Friday morning.
“Send them back,” Jonathan Rinaldi, a Queens City Council candidate and serial sperm donor, shouted as the chaotic scenes unfolded outside the city’s main migrant intake site.
“Close the border, close the border. Respect the constitution AOC. I am your constituent,” a male protestor cried out.
At one point, a security guard grabbed a screaming Rinaldi, 44, and shoved him behind a barricade.
The protestors – brandishing “Americans first: Vetted & legal migrants only” signs – descended on the hotel at East 45th Street as the lawmakers were addressing the city’s asylum-seeking crisis.
AOC and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus had just toured the emergency shelter when the chaos erupted.
“What we seek to do is to make sure that all the resources are necessary and that we are joining with the city and state,” Ocasio-Cortez said before a mega-phone wielding man started shouting over the top of her, according to Fox News.
“Illegal immigration is not right! Respect the constitution, close the border,” he screamed.
Ocasio-Cortez tried to continue, listing off solutions to the worsening humanitarian crisis.
“I think that there are three points of consensus here that are very important in getting a solution to that issue. The first is that there is consensus here across geographies and state on increased federal resources to cities and municipalities dealing with this issue,” she said.
“The second is to allow for work authorizations so that folks in here can get to work and start supporting themselves as soon as possible. They are prevented from getting jobs. They are prevented from employment and that is part of the strain on our public systems. The faster that folks can access the work that they’re asking for, legally, the better we can solve.”
Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly called on President Biden and the federal government to expedite the permits, insisting the influx of migrants pouring into the city will “destroy” the Big Apple.
Hizzoner warned earlier this week that a “black market” of migrant employment was already emerging across the city as a result of the lengthy delays.
Speaking to The Post after the pols dispersed, protestor David Rem, 59, insisted that many migrants being sheltered by the Big Apple had “jumped” the immigration line.
“My wife’s children, Diego and Lina, have been waiting seven long years in Medellin, Colombia, to come to this country legally. They have paid all the immigration fees and have been fingerprinted by the FBI. They have done everything right — they have been waiting and they haven’t broken federal law by crossing the border illegally, so why not them?” he said.
“You know what’s going to happen, they’re going to say to my kids in a year from now ‘Diego and Lina, sorry but there’s no room for you, the country’s full’. It’s a slap in the face to legal migration,” Rem said, while clutching a placard that read “99% of these illegal aliens asylum petitions are not true asylum petitions”.
“From the bottom of my heart, I implore Biden to close the border. It’s two years overdue. If you keep rewarding people for breaking federal law by crossing the border and coming to New York illegally, it’s never going to stop,” he continued.
Fellow Queens local, D’Anna Morgan, 28, agreed.
“It’s not right these migrants are jumping the line in front of people who have waited years and years to come to America the right way,” Morgan said, adding that she lives just blocks from a shelter in Jamaica.
“New York City’s going to resemble a third world country.”
Thousands of migrants have descended on the Roosevelt Hotel since it was turned into a main arrival center in May to cope with the relentless influx of asylum seekers pouring into the city.
In July, dozens of migrants waiting to be processed were forced to sleep on the sidewalk surrounding the hotel site when the shelter hit capacity.
The city has opened more than 200 emergency sites to cater for the more than 110,000 migrants that have arrived since spring 2022.
